In the future, 2024 will be known among the Idaho agriculture world as the year of the New Water Agreement - an agreement between the senior water right holders who surface irrigate in southwest Idaho and the junior water right holders who mostly pump ground water up from the aquifer to irrigate their crops in southeast Idaho.
Bingham County 3rd generation farmer and board member of the Bingham Groundwater District, Adam Young, recently outlined this new and historic agreement generically referred to as the New Settlement Agreement. For this article I shall refer to it as the NWA since it specifically identifies the agreement to be about water.
Conflict has been growing between these two types of water users over the past decade as more has become known of the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer, the underground source of water that spans the eastern portion of Idaho and is used for farming across southern Idaho.
In the past, when all farming was done by flood irrigation through a vast canal system, the aquifer was naturally recharged throughout the season as excess water percolated downward and ended up back in the aquifer. However, with the advent of more powerful pumps, irrigation wells were built and pivots installed to more efficiently irrigate crops, especially the thirsty crops of potatoes and alfalfa.
However, in recent years the aquifer water level began dropping too fast and fears over having enough water bred new conflicts between senior and junior water right owners that the 2015-2016 water agreement couldn’t satisfy. This led to this year’s “call” for more water by the senior Surface Water Coalition users in the west and the curtailment order on junior Groundwater irrigators in the east– even though it was a water rich year.
Public outrage and common sense eventually prevailed enough to force the SWC to agree to look again at the old water agreements. After months of hard work on both sides of the issue, a compromise was reached. Young explained how each side made concessions to find a new workable water policy that allows both senior and junior water right owners to continue to farm and ranch.
A major compromise by the SWC was to agree to forge a new agreement and declare the 2015-2016 agreement void. That cleared the table to working out new goals and the terms
to reach them. For example, the SWC adopted a new common goal of stabilizing the recently rebounding aquifer levels instead of requiring a return to the former higher aquifer levels. T
The SWC also agreed to cap the yearly mitigation water requirement at 75,000 acre feet. In turn the GW users agreed to accept that cap, which is higher than the more recent mitigation level of 50,000 acre feet.
Another major compromise was that the SWC would allow the GW users to average their usage over 4-year blocks to provide a bit of a cushion to weather those inevitable drier years. A concession by the GW users is to accept an individual farm water allotment based on the average water used for the years of 2010-2014 minus 205,000 acre feet.
This means they have committed to use less than their historic average amounts in order to stabilize the aquifer and ensure the senior water right owners have sufficient water. It also means they are guaranteed a certain amount of water each year.
The GW users have also gained the right to pool their water rights on their own land and the right to exchange allocations with neighboring farmers. And, if they haven’t used all their allocation at the end of one 4-year block, they can carry it over into the next 4-year block.
Even with all these ways to handle their water allotment, the NWA does reduce their flexibility to change what they grow. For instance, Young and his family grows wheat, barley malt and alfalfa on about 2700 acres. Barley requires the least amount of water, wheat is also a low user, but alfalfa is a thirsty crop. Should the market soar for alfalfa and they want to put more acreage into that crop, they might not have sufficient water to do so. The same problem would happen if a farmer wanted to increase their potato crop, another thirsty crop.
According to Young, the GW users are hoping that their continued investment in conserving water usage and in directly recharging the aquifer will make the new allotment system more feasible and sustainable for their farms.
Conservation can mean shutting off the end guns of their pivots as the Youngs and many farmers have already done. It can also mean monitoring well meters in real time on a district level. This “telemetry” can make sure no water is being wasted. The details of how it can be rerouted to other users in the allotment system is a detail that still needs to be figured out.
In fact, there is a 10-member committee charged with figuring out the new procedures created by the NWA. Just how will they exchange allotments, how will the districts distribute recharge credits, will telemetry meters be required? These are just some of the questions they will be grappling with. In a sense the work is just beginning as to how to make the NWA a working reality.
Recharging the aquifer is another hope of the GW users. So far, the injection wells are the most cost effective and efficient system. They take only a few square feet of a canal bank location, a filter system and regular water testing. The goal is to use all the water allotted the districts – meaning that if the canal is full and the fields are irrigated sufficiently, like happens later in the season, then filtered water can be pumped back to the aquifer, earning recharge credits. These credits could mean more allotment breathing space and flexibility for the GW users.
An earlier technological recharge method is the open basin approach. However, they are expensive, take a lot of acreage, are less efficient and have an unintended consequence of creating damage to neighboring homes. Residential homeowners next to the Bonneville County 55th Street Recharge Basin have seen the constant construction vibrations crack their ceilings and add sand to their wells which is then pumped into their house and clogs their facets.
When asked, Young was unaware of these basin related consequences and thought the basins might still have a place in the fields, away from residential neighborhoods. Perhaps local zoning restrictions need to provide some protection for neighborhoods. Additionally, those currently being affected need repairs and mitigation solutions by the basin owners. Ignoring their plight isn’t the responsible choice.
Water, a necessary and finite resource, is always a complex issue. It is looking like the NWA will be a solid step forward to a future of collaborative and wise use of the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer and the continued growth of Idaho’s agriculture economy.