Ridenbaugh Press/Water Rights

The Idaho Water Resource Board (IWRB) will receive comment on the proposed Treasure Valley Comprehensive Aquifer Management Plan (CAMP) during public hearings scheduled for Monday, September 10, 2012 in Caldwell at the Caldwell Public Library, 1010 Dearborn St., and Tuesday September 11, 2012 in Boise at the Idaho Water Center, 322 E. Front St. A copy of the proposed plan and associated documents are available on the Idaho Department of Water Resources Treasure Valley CAMP Web site.

In March 2010, the IWRB appointed an Advisory Committee comprised of representatives from water providers, local governments, utilities, business interests and conservation groups. Between April 2010 and June 2011 the committee held regular meetings. The result of those meetings is the proposed CAMP for the Treasure Valley. The proposed Treasure Valley CAMP was accepted for public review by the IWRB at its meeting on May 18, 2012. After considering public comment and reviewing the proposed plan, the IWRB will consider adopting a final plan for submission to the 2013 Idaho Legislature.

The IWRB will hold a 60-day public comment period from August 1 to September 30.

On April 20, the Arizona Department of Water Resources filed a report that describes a methodology for delineating the subflow zone within the San Pedro River Watershed.
The report is titled “Subflow Zone Delineation Methodology for the San Pedro River Watershed,” and it includes large color maps, figures and tables. The methodology proposed in this report is subject to review by the court in the Gila River Adjudication and comment by the parties.
Copies of the report in electronic and hard copy format are available for purchase by contacting the Department at 1-866-246-1414.

On April 20, the Arizona Department of Water Resources filed a report that describes a methodology for delineating the subflow zone within the San Pedro River Watershed.
The report is titled “Subflow Zone Delineation Methodology for the San Pedro River Watershed,” and it includes large color maps, figures and tables. The methodology proposed in this report is subject to review by the court in the Gila River Adjudication and comment by the parties.
Copies of the report in electronic and hard copy format are available for purchase by contacting the Department at 1-866-246-1414.

The southern Idaho Surface Water Coalition and other parties had it out in SRBA Court on January 18 with the Aberdeen-Springfield Canal Company and the state of Idaho over whether the company has the right to use much of the Snake River water it long has used.

It also raises some significant questions about the meaning and application of the state’s accomplished transfer statute.

The coming decision, in a series of subcases brought to Judge Eric Wildman after a finding by Special Master Terry Dolan, could have impact on a number of cases around the basin.

Aberdeen-Springfield has long-established water rights for its customers, a point not in dispute. Decreed through the Rexburg Decree and then the Eagle Decree in 1969, the organization has had water rights to delivery generally for agricultural and domestic uses.
Their position was complicated, however, by one ongoing condition and by a recent series of settlements and claims.

The Surface Water Coalition, represented in court by attorney Travis Thompson, said that much of Aberdeen-Springfield’s water – he estimated 70% – is “lost,” drained through the canal system, so that only a minority of the flow goes to beneficial use specified in the decrees.
That “lost” water also amounted, in part at least, to a recharge of the declining Snake River Plain aquifer. In 2002 the state of Idaho made moves toward encouraging recharge of the aquifer. In 2007, Aberdeen-Springfield filed an amended claim which mentioned only irrigation and – Thompson said – not specifically any recharge. But some debate has persisted about the relationship between the state and the canal company over the recharge and lost flow.

“We have conflicting testimony in the record,” he said, and he indicated that significant gaps in evidence remain.

If Aberdeen-Springfield is allowed to keep its existing diversions, he suggested, that amounts to an accomplished transfer, an expansion of use. When an objection is filed alleging such an expansion, he said, the case must go back for evaluation to the Idaho Department of Water Resources. “I still think the statute is mandatory,” Thompson said. “I don’[t think you can waive it.”

Instead, Dolan delivered an opinion which in part upheld the district’s (and state’s) contentions.

Wildman said that common practice in the SRBA has often involved simple decisions by the master in the subcase, or the judge – that it has stayed in the court system. He asked at what point an objector has to ask for remand to the department.

Attorney Kent Fletcher, for the Minidoka Irrigation District, said that the parties generally have wanted to move cases forward as best they can, so none have been inclined to want to return cases to the IDWR.

Randall Budge, attorney for Aberdeen-Springfield, said some studies have shown the amount of lost or recharged water is less than the 70% cited in some places.

He argued that the core of the case was that the Surface Water Coalition was in effect trying to ensure that some users, such as Aberdeen-Springfield, are left with relatively junior rights, less senior than those they have been assumed to have, and to push for more groundwater mitigation.

A 2009 comprehensive model of the Ozark Plateau aquifer system shows that more groundwater is available for use without compromising the long-range water supply.

“Based on what we learned from the model developed by the U.S. Geological Survey, it appears the supply can support about three times the amount of water that’s currently authorized for use and still meet safe yield standards,” said David Barfield, chief engineer of the Kansas Department of Agriculture’s division of water resources. “Because of this, I will rescind the water rights moratorium that’s been in place for the aquifer since 2004.”

Safe yield for the area is defined as the use that can be sustained without reducing storage in the aquifer by more than 25 percent over the next 100 years. The division of water resources calculates safe yield at 36,000 acre-feet, about three times more than is currently authorized.

Safe yield was determined using a comprehensive model of the aquifer system developed by the U.S. Geological Survey and MODFLOW software to analyze the effects of increased groundwater use on the long-term availability of groundwater in an area that includes southeast Kansas, southwest Missouri and northeast Oklahoma.

“The model was extremely useful to answer our concerns about the quantity and quality of groundwater in this aquifer system,” Barfield said. “Based on the model results, there is clearly sufficient water available to allow the moratorium term permits that have been in place since 2004 to become regular water appropriation permits and to re-open the area to new appropriations.”

The area will be opened through a regulation to be developed in 2011.

Concerns about the quantity and quality of groundwater in the aquifer system prompted the chief engineer to designate a moratorium area in 2004 on new groundwater appropriations from the system. The moratorium exempted certain minor uses and allowed moratorium term permits from the Ozark Plateau aquifer until further studies could be completed.

The Ozark Plateau aquifer system is an important water source for southeast Kansas, southwest Missouri, northeast Oklahoma and a small part of northwest Arkansas. The system consists of two aquifers that have a discontinuous confining unit. The upper aquifer is the Springfield Plateau aquifer; the lower is the Ozark aquifer.

The T. Boone Pickens company Mesa Water LP is filing a lawsuit against three local Texas water planning entities, arguing that their planning efforts could have the effect of devaluing his water rights.

The suit was reported filed in March, with the statewide Texas Water Development Board noted as a defendant.

Pickens said the planning effort could have the effect of taking as much as 18,000 acre feet of water in the Ogallala Aquifer from him and another business party.

At a February 1 hearing Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Robert Oberbillig upheld a statute approved by the Arizona Legislature nearly two decades ago granting to the City of Prescott the right to import Big Chino groundwater into the Prescott Active Management Area. The court observed that by settling the Yavapai-Prescott Indian Tribe’s claims through a water service agreement with Prescott – using groundwater imported from the Big Chino Sub-basin – the Legislature “threaded a very small needle.”

According to the ruling the Legislature was able to satisfy the existing claims of the Yavapai-Prescott Indian Tribe to the Verde River and its tributaries and reserve water to settle the future claims of the Yavapai-Apache Nation, without reducing the volume of water available to the Phoenix area.

The court also recognized the significance of Prescott’s transfer of more than 7,000 acre-feet of Central Arizona Project water to the City of Scottsdale as part of the Yavapai-Prescott Indian Tribe’s water rights settlement.

Coincidentally, Judge Oberbillig’s ruling comes 19 years to the day from the special session in which the Legislature enacted the law giving Prescott its importation rights.

While acknowledging the importance of the ruling, Prescott Mayor Marlin Kuykendall and City Manager Steve Norwood commented that the City is in active discussions with Salt River Project (SRP) to mutually resolve issues associated with Prescott’s Big Chino Water Ranch Project “outside the courtroom,” and expressed appreciation that SRP has expressed a willingness to do the same. “We hope to bring forth an agreement with SRP shortly that will pave the way toward a successful partnership on these matters of common interest,” Kuykendall said.

[see city of Prescott, February 2]

Washington’s Kitsap Peninsula on the west side of Puget Sound across from Seattle traditionally has been a fairly wet place, with plenty of rainfall and enough snowmelt to amply replenish the area’s aquifers that supply about four-fifths of the water the peninsula’s third-of-a-million people use.

Times are changing. The Kitsap Sun reported on October 3 that rainfall this year has been much lower than normal, lower at least than in the last 20 years and maybe in the last 30. That in turn has meant gradually depleting aquifers, in one of the wettest corners of the country.

Citing Jim LeCuyer, who manages water for the area utilities district: “This past water year, just ending, LeCuyer found himself in a topsy-turvy world. Areas in southwest Kitsap County, which normally get the greatest rainfall, dropped farther below their annual average, on a percentage basis, than anywhere in the county. Meanwhile, areas with the lowest average rainfall experienced precipitation that turned out close to their annual average. The apparent reason for the switch-around, LeCuyer said, relates to the direction of storms hitting the Kitsap Peninsula. When weather systems arrive from the west, the Olympic Mountains cast a “rain shadow” along the shore of Hood Canal — an area that typically gets its rain from other directions.”

Edwards Aquifer area/Edwards Aquifer Authority

The Edwards Aquifer Authority is considering rules that would sharply limit sales and transfers of water rights across an area 100 miles long, around Cibolo Creek.

The proposed rules, which will be the subject of public hearings through September, are intended to provide some protection to the stressed aquifer. The proposal, which might be put into effect before the end of the year, reflects earlier restrictions on water use in that area.

Rights sales were thought likely to have a negative effect on water supplies from the aquifer.

One board member remarked, “At first blush, it sounds like we’re penalizing people who live in Hays and Comal counties. But the studies we’ve conducted over several years show us that the springs could be dramatically affected. Otherwise, I would be opposed to it.”

[see the New Braunfels (TX) Herald-Zeitung, September 3]

The Central Texas Groundwater Conservation District in August established the first-ever rules for groundwater access in Burnet County, to disapproval of more than 1,000 people who signed petitions to stop imposition of the rules.

The new rules would be generally familiar, however, in many water-short areas. They require well drillers to obtain a particular permit before starting work, for example. There are exemptions from the new provisions, including existing domestic and stockwater uses, which would be “grandfathered” in.

One somewhat more unusual provision establishes “correlative rights,” basing access to water on the amount of land owned. The county had been operating in groundwater regulation on the prior appropriation system, which gives priority to senior water users.

Much of the water used in the county comes from the Trinity Aquifer, which recently was estimated to hold more water than previously had been thought. [Burnet (TX) Bulletin, September 2]