State looking at possible changes to water management in Teton Valley - East Idaho News
Outdoors

State looking at possible changes to water management in Teton Valley

  Published at  | Updated at

DRIGGS — On July 26, a public meeting will take place in Rexburg that has the potential to change aspects of life in the Upper Teton River Basin forever. That meeting will be about water, specifically water rights.

Water rights have been an issue in Idaho as long as farmers have used water to irrigate their crops. As water becomes more scarce, the demands of those to get their share grow more fierce.

Lynn Bagley, who farms with his brother near Victor, knows all about water rights.

“The whole valley has junior water rights to everybody down river. Rexburg is senior to here, but junior to the Twin Falls area,” he explains. “It all goes by priority dates.”

When water gets scarce, ‘junior’ farmers have to stop irrigating in order for the water to make it to the ‘senior’ farmers with the priority date. Those dates refer to when a farm or property using water was established.

These rights are managed by the Idaho Department of Water Resources, the IDWR.

“The Director of the Department of Water Resources has the responsibility to ensure that the prior appropriation doctrine is enforced: first in time, first in right,” explains Tony Olenichak, IDWR’s manager for the water district covering much of East Idaho, including the Upper Teton Basin.

“If the senior water users aren’t getting the water they need, then the director is responsible for curtailing the junior users,” he said.

The senior water users on the Snake River plain use a lot of water. But they aren’t alone.

In the 1950’s, farms sprung up that took advantage of new technology that could pump water up from the ground. According to Mathew Weaver, the deputy director of the IDWR, said these farms make up about a million acres.

TrailCreekCanal
Photo by Jackson Adams, Teton Valley News

“Years ago ground water and surface water were considered as completely different sources,” explains Olenichak. “Over the last decade or so there’s a consensus that there is an impact from the ground water users on the senior surface waters that are getting curtailed because there simply isn’t enough water.”

When ground water users pump up a lot of water, more surface water sinks into the ground to make up for it.

On the Eastern Snake River plain, more water has been pumped out than put in.

“The Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer (ESPA) has been in decline since 1952,” said Weaver. “Every year it has shrunk by about 214,000 acre feet… When ground water is in decline, we can declare a ground water management area… and curtail the ability of people to pump.”

The method of combining the management of ground and surface water is called conjunctive management.

“The conjunctive management piece is just recognizing the connection and saying we are going to manage the connection,” said Amy Verbeten, executive director of the non-profit organization Friends of the Teton River.

“The rules of conjunctive management and conjunctive administration are being implemented on a defined area on the ESPA. But we have been hearing that it is just a matter of time that the management plan will be applied outside of the current management area.”

That means conjunctive management could be coming to the Upper Teton Basin, which is the purpose of the meeting on July 26 in Rexburg.

“One of the issues needing consideration will be the areal extent of the ground water management area,” the IDWR said in a letter sent July 7. “The Department’s technical information suggests that the area that impacts water stored in the ESPA and spring discharge extends into tributary basins.”

The letter spells out some of the ways declaring a ground water management area could affect people in the valley.

“A ground water management plan would manage ground water withdrawals on the aquifer and hydraulically connected sources to ensure a reasonably safe supply of ground water,” the letter states. “If the Director determines the ground water is insufficient to meet the needs of water right holders, junior users may be required to cease diversions.”

This potentially means that farmers like Bagley would no longer get the water they need to grow their crops until the ground water on the ESPA is sufficiently full.

Verbeten and Bagley’s goal is to make sure there is no question the valley is contributing its share of water.

“ESPA has really driven the local effort, the Teton Water Users Association,” said Verbeten. “It’s a really diverse group. It’s made up of farming interests, conservation interests and municipal interests, and the agencies IDFG, Forest Service, the Water District. We have been meeting for like nine months.”

One of the Association’s ideas is to return to an old, beneficial farming practice: flood irrigation.

“Back when the Teton valley was first settled, we created canals to flood irrigate [and] kind of created our wetlands,” said Bagley. “We used to flood the aquifer, which would create the wetlands. We have become better farmers, but that hurt our aquifer.”

“We know that there is a tremendous amount of connection between groundwater and surface water. In some places it seeps down into the ground and in some places seeps back up and creates a wetland,” said Verbeten.

“Canals in this area have about a 50 percent loss rate,” she continued, meaning that half the water that flows along the surface goes down into the water table.

By opening up the canals again, early spring run-off water could be effectively stored in the Teton Basin’s own aquifer.

“We used to have a lot of water running out of the valley in August and September,” said Bagley. “What’s happening right now is we haven’t been putting it in the ground and it runs out of the valley and the water is running a lot lower than it used to. If we could do that in the spring, maybe instead of leaving in May, the water will leave in August or September.”

This, it turns out, is precisely the time when farms down river need the water most.

“It’s a way of saving our water and helping people out down river,” said Bagley.

“That’s the whole point,” said Verbeten. “What can we do to make sure everyone gets their water?”

This article was originally published in the Teton Valley News. It is used here with permission.

SUBMIT A CORRECTION