Water Users Face Shut Offs
Michelle Dunlop
Director Karl Dreher ordered pumpers from American Falls to Thousand Springs to supply the Twin Falls Canal Co. with 27,006 acre-feet of water by July 9. That’s enough to cover the same amount of land in water one-foot deep.
This is Dreher’s latest response to a January 2005 call for water placed by the Surface Water Coalition, which comprises seven Magic Valley canal companies and irrigation districts.
Coalition members alleged that years of drought and groundwater pumping had cut into their senior, or older, water rights.
The surface water users asked Dreher to curtail groundwater users in order to provide them with their full allotment of water.
Dreher responded in April 2005 with an initial order that has been followed by two supplemental ones.
Ground water users were to provide 27,700 acre-feet of water last irrigation season.
In his latest order on Thursday, Dreher noted that pumpers had come up with more than the amount of water they were required to in 2005.
However, he wrote, most of the “replacement” water did not return to the section of the Snake River on which the Twin Falls Canal Co. relies.
Thus, the director ordered groundwater users to provide 27,006 acre-feet this irrigation season.
If Dreher’s order is not met, groundwater users with rights of May 27, 1979, or later, will be curtailed.
A recent ruling by Fifth District Court Judge Barry Wood casts uncertainty on how water users will respond.
Wood voided Idaho’s rules of conjunctive management, which guide how the director manages ground and surface water together, after Coalition members sued Water Resources.
Dreher relied on these rules — along with Idaho’s first in time, first in right law — in his decisions.
Times-News reporter Michelle Dunlop can be reached at 735-3237 or by e-mail at mdunlop@magicvalley.com.