The map below depicts areas of Idaho under irrigation well moratoriums which the Idaho Department of Water Resources has issued since 1992.
Map courtesy of Idaho Department of Water Resources
Those upset with the recent curtailment order of Eastern Idaho pumping might want to breathe deeply and peruse the map, consider that by preventing further depletion of the aquifer by new drilling the Department has for decades protected those already using groundwater as well as those utilizing natural flow. Water users, thanks to government intervention, essentially have a monopoly on a finite resource theoretically owned by all.
Most of the moratorium area came into being around 1992 as a result of a six year drought, though aquifer concerns extended back to the 1950s when sprinkler irrigation made its first appearance. The watermaster was already closely monitoring changes in flow, and by looking at his annual reports we see that he paid particular attention to pumping withdrawals by the Michaud project, the city of Pocatello, and West Vaco. The late 1970s hydrologist reports were making a strong connection between pumping, stream flows and aquifer shrinkage, and in 1989 upper valley irrigators were at odds with Twin Falls area users, both sets painting Idaho Power as the real enemy. Rexburg farmer Dell Raybould phrased the problem thusly at an organized meeting of two hundred farmers,"It's Upper Valley against Lower Valley, and it's pumpers against stream users until all of us are subordinated to the power interests of Idaho Power Co." At that time, watermaster Ron Carlson estimated 2500 wells would be subject to the proposed moratorium Twin Falls users had set forth.
Around that time, the watermaster included in his report the following statement that foreshadowed decades of litigation to follow. He was writing in regards to an environmentalist suit for ten thousand acre feet to save trumpeter swans, but his words ring true for other aspects of the "water wars," too:
On May 15, 1992, the moratorium, which didn't affect domestic or stock water wells, went into effect. Snowpacks had been as low as ten percent of normal in some areas. and Water Resource Director Keith Higginson considered it probable that those farmers with water rights later than 1890 would be curtailed.
Later in the year, the Twin Falls and North Side canal systems agreed to drop their suit in exchange for a continued moratorium on new pumping over the aquifer. Studies began to determine the exact relationship between groundwater and stream flows.
1993 brought a good snowpack but the drought conditions, which some thought to be worse than the drought of the 1930s, lingered. Western Idaho farmers altered their crop rotation to include less water-intensive crops. A year later, the Idaho Supreme Court ruled that anyone with a water right before the 1951 Idaho Groundwater Code was established took precedence than rights coming after that date. The problem: irrigators were using 500,000 more acre feet of water than was being replenished by natural means. Some proposed that senior water right holders be reimbursed, with money or water, by junior users.
Hundreds of permits for wells already lay in limbo by that time. No doubt thousands more would have been lined up behind them had the order been rescinded. The moratorium ultimately sewed up a finite resource in the hands of those already using it, making landowners' holdings more valuable that they otherwise would have been—the continued expansion of pumping would have almost certainly ended up in what is called a "tragedy of the commons" scenario, in which an unchecked set of users depletes a common pasturage (as was done by sheepmen and cattlemen in the West before the government stepped in to manage ranges) or other resource, i.e., water. In that situation, all users would have continued to see aquifer levels lowered, pumps drilled deeper until they went dry, streamflows diminished, until, without intervention, all land would lose value and become all but worthless.
Thus, the government farmers now curse as a threat to their existence preserved their wealth—and continues to do so. No doubt, as a finite resource it will continue to inspire litigation. Eastern Idaho farmers may consequently have to get creative: have a lottery to take land out of production, either by sale to outside entities (the evil rich? the evil environmentalist group?) willing to buy land without water or by putting random acreages in fallow on a rotating basis; eliminate high water-use crops like alfalfa; revive massive water recharge like the truncated Dubois Project to be used on years like the present one, when the reservoirs are full and water goes downstream, unused by irrigators (but not wasted by other measures). The nature of a democracy is to make all parties somewhat unhappy—compromise entails not one victor and one loser, as many try to portray today's current skirmish, but incomplete and unsatisfactory outcomes.
Ralph Thurston is the author of three recent books on Bingham County history: much of The Shanghi Plain deals with water issues, including the history of the Reservation Canal, the Aberdeen-Springfield Canal, and the Lost River projects. The Dubois Project also appears in the book with a complete explanation of its many variations. His most recent book, "We The Peoples": Two Canals' War For Territory, details the inside history of the Peoples Canal's construction and its legal battle with the State of Idaho, the American Falls Canal, and the Department of Interior. You can get a copy of all his books at Kesler's Market or online.
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