Otter proposes water project funding

BOISE – Gov. Butch Otter has proposed spending more than two-thirds of a state emergency fund on five water projects and to renovate a warehouse so it can hold prison inmates.

Together, the projects would cost $10.9 million out of the $15 million fund set aside in March for an unspecified “economic emergency.”

The largest project would have the state pay $6 million to farmers who pump groundwater if they agree to leave up to 20,000 acres fallow. The unused water would be used in a pilot program seeking to boost levels of the dwindling Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer.

In addition, Otter wants to use $2.5 million to begin renovations on a warehouse at the Idaho Correctional Center south of Boise.

The project would create 304 new beds to help relieve prison overcrowding.

Otter aides said the proposals are still in the development phase.

“We’ve got a skeleton but we’re still trying to put some meat on the bones,” said Jon Hanian.

As the 2007 Legislature drew to a close in March, lawmakers approved setting aside $15 million of Idaho’s budget surplus for a possible economic emergency, without saying what it might be.

Five Republicans control the money and must agree if it’s to be divvied up before the 2008 Legislature meets in January: Otter; Senate President Pro Tem Bob Geddes, of Soda Springs; House Speaker Lawerence Denney, of Midvale; Rep. Maxine Bell, of Jerome; and Sen. Dean Cameron, of Rupert.

On Friday, Bell said she needed more information about the water projects before she’d agree to use the money. In particular, Bell said groundwater pumpers – who may be forced to pay thousands in future maintenance costs to continue Otter’s proposals – should be given a chance to weigh in.

She also wants to hear from Clive Strong, a water lawyer with the state attorney general, and Department of Water Resources Director David Tuthill, who was briefed on the projects but didn’t help develop them, according to his agency.

“I appreciate the governor’s efforts, but I wonder if there couldn’t be a few more people at the table – especially with the money that will be needed afterward to maintain these projects,” Bell said. “I began to think this was too serious a situation to be done just within the governor’s office.”

In addition to the $6 million water conservation plan, Otter’s projects include $1.7 million to reuse water from several ponds near Twin Falls for irrigation and diversion into a creek. A separate $182,000 project would provide water from the Alpheus Creek spring to the city of Twin Falls.

And $521,000 would be used to build a spring-water collection system to ship more water to trout producer Clear Springs Foods Inc. The company has sued groundwater pumpers for water it says they are using illegally.

Lynn Tominaga, head of the Idaho Ground Water Appropriators, didn’t immediately return phone calls seeking comment.

Also part of Otter’s plan, Corrections Corporation of America, the Tennessee-based private prison company that runs the Idaho Correctional Center, would use $2.5 million to do planning, preparation and limited construction on a 43,000-square-foot warehouse that currently houses prisoners who do contract work for private companies.

That project would mean the loss of about $1 million in annual prison industries revenue. But it would add beds and expand the prison sewer system, according to the Department of Correction.

Still, some lawmakers said it hardly sounded like an economic emergency that necessitates action before the Legislature returns to Boise in January.

“My initial reaction is unless someone can justify why it would be an emergency to move right now, it’s better suited to have those proposals brought before the Legislature and addressed during the upcoming session,” Cameron said

Some minority Democrats agreed. They objected to the $15 million fund in March because it was controlled by just five people from a single party.

“We’re going to be in town. We certainly could meet pretty quickly,” said Rep. Margaret Henbest, D-Boise. “I don’t see either of those proposals as being an emergency.”