on May 31st Idaho Department of Water Resources Director Matthew Weaver issued a curtailment order for six groundwater districts is that a big deal it's estimated that about 500,000 acres are subject to curtailment um which is half of all the groundwater acres in the Eastern Snake River plane so for many reasons that's a very big deal good morning friends welcome back to Asam man thinketh on yanasa TV so today I wanted to talk about what's going on in Idaho because some of you have probably heard about this but the state of Idaho has put a water curtailment order which is basically a water shut off order on literally a half million Acres of uh Farmland that's a lot of potatoes a lot of these Farmers this impacts about 6,400 water users but a lot of these Farmers that are farming this land have already invested thousands of Acres uh thousands of dollar per acre to grow potatoes good morning everyone my name is Trevor bellnap I operate a family farm fifth generation Family Farm in in the Snake River Valley of Eastern Idaho and I just wanted to visit with you for a minute about the impacts of the water curtailment order that's been issued by director Weaver from the auto Department of Water Resources the situation in which we find ourselves is about as bad as it gets not only will we be out of business many other businesses will be highly impacted and you as my friends and neighbors will also be impacted because we're so interconnected if the a economy in Eastern Idaho fails which it surely will if this containment order is in can remains in place will dry up and blow away just like it did back in the dust bowl of the 30s banks will fail equipment dealers car dealers gas stations grocery stores all rely on the a economy that's here in Eastern Idaho the children in our schools how many of them belong to families who work in some form of a industry in Eastern Idaho it's horrible and we need to fix it and I would propose to you that it is not a water problem it's a management problem because we have water reservoirs are full the mountains are covered in snow the river's been flowing well so why now why after we've planted our crops we have crops in the ground they're already growing now in the middle of June they pull a curtailment order to say You must cease pumping water the cost is huge an acre of potatoes costs upward of $4,000 an acre to grow how will that ever be recovered they will not grow without water and what will that do to everyone else that's Reliant Upon Us in this area and the state of Idaho what will the counties do for roads and bridges police departments ambulances hospitals that rely on tax the tax base property like this will become worthless without water the land doesn't have any value here but will they do we need to consider these things and we need to we need to talk to our elected officials we need to call them now and push on them to find a workable solution a compromise that will allow businesses like ours to continue to progress and grow and succeed in the s River Valley and allow those in the southern part of the state to also continue to go we need to work together to find a common solution or we're all going to fail right so they've got all of this investment into their land and then the government comes out in June and says water curtailment you cannot water your crops you're done um so they're pretty much going to lose that entire investment in those crops it would put it would would cost millions of dollars and it's not just going to impact the farmers it's going to impact the entire economy um for the state of Idaho so uh I wanted to explain what's going on there and what I think is going to happen because the the it's in the best interest of the governor of Idaho to do all that he can to figure out a solution to this problem he he would he would face a lot of uh backlash if he did not solve this water curtailment issue um the curtailment was put into place because the current laws and the current regulations basically state that that's what has to happen so I don't know if this is being brought up as as an excuse to go in and rework some of those laws or if this is happening because there's definitely a a water shortage there we'll we'll discuss that in a second Burley attorney Kent Fletcher represents several surface water irrigation clients my clients don't want want to see curtailment I mean it's devastating to a lot of people you've probably heard first in time first in right in Idaho Junior water rights holders can only get their water once the senior water rights users have theirs surface water users like the twinfalls canal company in most cases have senior rights dating back to the early 1900s based on Department of Water Resources calculations without curtailment the Twin Falls Canal company stood to suffer a shortfall of over 74,000 AC feet this season that's about 12 days worth of water um in the long run J Bar Loi has been with the twinfalls canal company since 1992 he says they rely on Springs flowing from the Snake River plane aquafer for about 80% of their water and while reservoirs and storage systems are topped off from a good winter in Southern Idaho in similar years they've still had to reduce deliveries our storage Supply filled in 2021 and 2022 uh we reduce diversions down a half inch per acre in both of those years so half of the groundwater users in the Snake River plane have been cut off from uh from water uh that to make up for a 74,000 uh acre foot shortage that goes into the surface water users now the largest surface water rights user in this area just happens to be the twinfalls canal company the twinfalls canal company is a a it's a 501 C12 which is a nonprofit utility type of uh Cooperative or or Corporation and they control close to 250,000 acre feet of water rights surface water rights with that 250,000 acre feet of surface water rights they service 4,000 customers and just about 200 202,000 Acres 203 if you round up slightly so 203,000 Acres so basically what you have is you know you have and this is just one of the surface water rights holders but they have um 250,000 acre feet of water rights okay they service 4,000 customers and they they irrigate 203,000 Acres because of that they are shutting down close to 500,000 Acres from estimates that I've heard 6,400 water users over 74,000 acre feet of water compared to that 250,000 acre fet of water so I do think that there's definitely an imbalance of water usage but when it gets into water rights I I mean I don't know I'm not an attorney I don't get into that stuff but I do think that you know the Twin Falls Canal company their water right State back to 1909 some of the oldest water rights in the country and I think that if you try and go in and um disrupt those senior water rights holders the impacts could fall all the way down the line and I don't know maybe Twin Falls is is pushing this issue because they want to be able to charge people who aren't in their Canal system for using water in the state that could end up happening that could be part of the solution is that they sell them you know 74,000 acre feet of water rights this year that's about 12 days worth of water um in the long run so there are some outdated mitigation plans that would fall into place normally when this when there seems to be a shortage after 10 years of litigation an agreement was reached between surface water districts and groundwater districts to follow mitigation plans that would ensure the senior water rights users would get their share in response to the curtailment an attorney representing groundwater users called the situation absurd saying hundreds of thousands of Acres of farmland and their Associated economic benefits are thrown away during a wet year just to cause a small amount of additional water to overflow from the aquer into the Snake River really all the ground water districts needed to do was comply uh with the terms that they agreed to back in 2015 well the goal of the mitigation plan that the groundwater District signed was to restore the aquifer and restore Water Supplies resulting from decades and Decades of pumping uh to so that we can get to a point where there isn't injury occurring to surface water users and that's still our goal as a surface water community so according to Governor little you know yes visually it looks like there's plenty of surface water because there is it looks like there's plenty of water in Idaho which many people would argue that there is he's saying that basically the the Eastern snake plane aquifer is drying up and that aquafer is what feeds the surface water so in order to protect surface water right holders they have to protect that aquifer and if the aquifer is levels are getting too low then they have to curtail to to save the aquifer and that's basically you know that that's what the government's always been there for for us is to protect us from things that we can't see under a 2009 mitigation plan um basically if there is a shortfall of water in order for water rights uh groundwater rights holders to be able to um utilize the water they would have to show that they have a storage plan to offset their water usage the the the problem that we have right now is that a lot of these farmers are saying that they have sent documents to the the state saying that they have enough offset to mitigate their proportional share of that process the state is saying no it's not just your proportional share it's the entire thing so anyway I don't know how they go about calculating all of these um water shortages but my my guess is is that this is going to be an ongoing issue for these farmers unless they work out a long-term solution in a modern day to mitigate and and and properly use those Water Resources um like I said I I'm not necessarily in favor of changing senior water right holders um rights because those are rights that have been put in place they've been protected by law um it it was it wouldn't be fair necessarily take them from them but at the same time you have a company that is irrigating half the land of what is being shut down to protect their water rights I do think that there's a lot of issues with our aquafers across the country in general um I I believe sincerely believe that a lot of that can be mitigated correctly by um implementing more regenerative range management practices so bringing cows back onto the land doing things that will help the land be able to retain soak up the water and replenish those aquifers I mean that's really with what what is happening is we're pumping it up to the surface it's running off because we're not properly taking care of our soil and there's nothing against big farmers out there it's just you know we we have to do something to be able to maybe there could be some studies done that could say okay well in these particular areas if we if we flip from crop land to range land we can replenish hogers by x amount each year there's there's there must be some sort of longer term solution to that other than shutting people down from operating their businesses and and doing so you know the the the the biggest challenge I I see with all this is that they're doing it they're doing it at a time when Farmers have already put their inputs into the land so it would literally bankrupt these Farmers to shut them down at this point point in the season they may have been able to take a hit had they known before they put all those inputs into the into the Farmland so um this is going to be an interesting story to see how it turns out to see how it develops but like I said I think in this particular case is it in the governor's best interest to find a a an immediate solution for this year and then work with the Water Resources Department the and and maybe even you know the state legislature to come up with laws and how to properly mitigate this problem in the future so that we were not getting Farmers heart attacks by coming out with curtailments and cutting them off and if it and if it comes down to laws being put in place with giving them the the ability to protect their rights and they're the ones who ultimately are shutting down these Farmers then you know that's something to consider as well you know this is a 501 C12 corporation that is has has been given the power to basically shut down other Farmers it's a very complicated um situation but like I said I think it's in the be Governor's best interest and the state legislator's best interest to find a solution and to find a solution quickly they really don't have much time because the crops are in the ground because the crops are in the ground they have to be watered and if they're not watered they're going to die so so this is something that is really urgent for them to come up with a solution on within the next week we'll see what happens stay tuned
