Water users offer new plan to avert crisis

BOISE – Nearing a state-imposed deadline for shutting off their water pumps, Idaho farmers and dairymen who draw water from an underground aquifer offered a plan Friday to deliver more water to trout farms with more senior water rights.

The proposal offered by the Idaho Ground Water Appropriators is the latest attempt to avert the economic hardship that could come from shutting down 591 water rights spread across more than 16,000 acres in the Magic Valley.

Idaho Department of Water Resources Director David Tuthill has set a July 6 deadline for shutting off those pumps to bolster flows from natural springs that flow near Hagerman and supply two trout farms with more senior rights to the resource.

In its latest proposal, the groundwater users group pledges to recharge the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer with another 10,000 acre feet of water at the end of the growing season – doubling the amount it initially agreed to divert back into the aquifer in April.

State water officials say they will review the new plan next week to determine whether it does enough to increase flows at the natural Thousand Springs area that supplies water to the fish producers.

“We think we are going to be very close,” Tim Deeg, president of the groundwater group, told the Associated Press. “We think it’s enough to avoid curtailment and that’s the biggest thing concerning us right now.”

The tussle over water began in 2005 when Blue Lakes Trout Farm and Clear Springs Foods asked the state to curtail groundwater use, claiming they were no longer receiving the flows guaranteed under their water right and essential to maintaining or increasing their fish production.

As the nation’s leading supplier of farm-raised rainbow trout, Idaho producers like Blue Lakes and Clear Springs say increased groundwater pumping from the aquifer is reducing flows of the cool, fresh water they use for raising trout.

The demand for water is exacerbated this summer after a winter of below-average mountain snowpack and predictions for a long, dry growing season.

In April, Tuthill issued a curtailment order that threatened to shut down 771 water rights across 33,000 acres in six counties north of the Snake River. The order was delayed after a brief showdown in the courts, but Tuthill reissued the order last month, this time shrinking the number of water rights and acreage affected.

Still, groundwater users say a shutdown would shrivel crops, stunt dairy production and cost business and industry at least $20 million in economic losses. Groundwater pumpers say that figure does not take into account other economic factors such as declines in the sale of fertilizer, farm supplies, tax losses and potential bank loan defaults.

“But we know it’s going to be a lot more when you factor in all the ancillary effects,” said Mike Journee, a spokesman for the groundwater users group.

Deeg said the group will also have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy water from other sources to keep its end of the bargain.