Study: Water cuts to cost millions

BOISE – Curtailing the water use of some Southern Idaho residents would cost the state and the region millions of dollars, according to a study presented to lawmakers Monday.

Though senior water-rights holders would benefit by curtailment, the study found those gains would not outweigh the economic losses of junior ground-water users on the Snake River plain aquifer.

There simply is not enough water to satisfy all existing water rights, said Donald Snyder, an associate dean at Utah State University who headed the study.

Several years of drought, decades of water pumping and changing irrigation practices have exacerbated Southern Idaho’s water shortage.

Earlier this year, seven canal companies demanded that the state deliver their senior water rights even if it meant other water users would be forced to shut off their pumps. Negotiations between canal companies and ground-water users are continuing, but the state could cut off some water users if the dispute remains unresolved.

The study, commissioned by the Idaho Senate Resources and Environment Committee last year and paid for by the Idaho attorney general’s office, showed that curtailing water use by junior water-rights holders on the Snake River plain aquifer would cost the state as much as $204.3 million in lost labor income, property income and business taxes.

Ground-water users would bear the brunt of those costs, Snyder said.

“The bottom line is that losses to water-rights holders will be in excess of gains to combined surface/spring water-rights holders in the foreseeable future,” Snyder said.

Under Idaho’s water system, rights or legal claims to water are doled out based on the date the water user applied. The study focused on people with irrigation or aquaculture water rights and divided them into groups based on whether they have senior – older – rights or junior water rights.

If everyone who received water rights after the start of 1949 were asked to curtail his use, the state would see a gain of more than $29 million for aquaculture users and senior surface and spring water users. But ground-water users would see a loss of more than $234 million statewide – along with an estimated 3,600 jobs.

If water use were curtailed for those with water rights junior to 1961, the study found, the net effect would be a loss of more than $130 million statewide – along with more than 2,000 jobs.

“The economic impacts of curtailment of junior irrigation ground-water rights under either of the curtailment scenarios, assuming steady state conditions, are anticipated to be five times larger than combined gains enjoyed by surface/spring water holders,” Snyder said.