Ridenbaugh Press/Water Rights

The Washington Department of Ecology has issued four new water rights for the city of Camas that will spur economic growth for the Southwest Washington community and help protect salmon runs and critical fish habitat.

Ecology and city officials announced the water rights at the site of an under-construction utility and pedestrian bridge that will carry some of the new supply of water across the Washougal River. The area is considered an important corridor for salmon and also features a habitat restoration project within walking distance of the bridge.

“This is a very significant achievement,” Camas Mayor Paul Dennis said. “It is a key step in assuring Camas’ water supplies far into the future. This is a major step of environmental stewardship. We are pleased with the agreement and appreciate the farsighted accomplishment this represents. It is truly a ‘win-win’ situation.”

Ecology Director Jay Manning said, “This decision is good news for salmon and good news for southwest Washington. It allows Camas to have the water it needs to grow its economy and serve its citizens, while at the same time protecting the natural resources that make this a great place to live, work and recreate.”

As a result of Ecology’s decision, the city has rights to receive 4.3 million gallons per day of new water to add to its current authorization of 5.6 million gallons per day. That combined total will meet the city’s 2020 demand projection.

Camas currently draws its municipal water supply from two surface water diversions on the Jones and Boulder Creeks, high in the watershed, and from nine groundwater wells along the Washougal River. The Jones and Boulder Creek water diversions during summer months take water away during a critical time for fish.

A broad coalition of representatives from local and state agencies, tribes, business interests, environmental groups and private citizens developed a watershed plan, which was adopted by Clark, Skamania and Cowlitz counties in 2006. This plan helped the city and Ecology agree on a strategy to approve the new water rights.

The watershed plan recommended shifting the city’s water supplies away from the Jones and Boulder Creeks to another source with less impact on fish and habitat. [see Department of Ecology, October 29]

The Southwest Florida Water Management District’s Governing Board voted October 27 to tighten water restrictions for all of Hillsborough, Pasco, and Pinellas counties.

The Governing Board has enacted these additional measures at the request of Tampa Bay Water, the region’s wholesale water supplier. Tampa Bay Water requested the District’s assistance because its water supplies have not returned to pre-drought conditions.

In addition to continuing to restrict lawn watering to one day per week, the new water shortage order calls for local governments to strictly enforce the rules. Additional restrictions include:

Restricting the time for hand-watering or micro-irrigation for non-lawn landscaping to before 8 a.m. or after 6 p.m.
Postponing turfgrass renovation, such as replacing lawns, and taking other appropriate steps to avoid an increase in lawn or landscape water use.
Reducing the 60-day allowance for new plant establishment. During days 31-60, only every-other-day watering is allowed. Some cities or counties continue to have stricter allowances for new plant material.
Reducing the time aesthetic fountains and waterfalls may operate from eight hours to four hours per day.
Limiting the use of unattended line flushing by water utilities.
Requiring water utilities and other local enforcement officials to increase their enforcement efforts, including requirements to respond to citizen complaints and issue citations without having first issued a warning.

The District is still impacted from two years of drought and the region still has a 16-inch rainfall deficit for the past 24 months. All of the water resources have declined rapidly during the first month of the dry season and the U.S. Drought Monitor shows the region in abnormally dry to moderate drought conditions. While groundwater levels are at the bottom of normal ranges, all major rivers in the District are below normal and lakes continue to be one to four feet below normal. Moreover, forecasts are calling for drier than normal conditions through next spring.

Tampa Bay Water can only store six billion gallons of water in the C.W. Bill Young Regional Reservoir, which is about 40 percent of its capacity, until the cracks in the reservoir’s soil-cement layer are addressed. Tampa Bay Water estimates that if the region does not receive above average rainfall January through March, the reservoir will be depleted by early May 2009. Tampa Bay Water’s service area includes Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties, as well as the cities of New Port Richey, St. Petersburg and Tampa.

Variances are available if a property proposes an alternative irrigation plan (such as splitting a large property into two pieces and assigning a different day to each piece).

Water utilities are required to promote water conservation, conduct a system water audit, and take action based on the results of the audit.
Water utilities and other local enforcement officials must respond to District referrals and regularly report enforcement activity.
Phase II restrictions continue to apply to other water uses, such as agricultural and industrial activities.

www.WaterMatters.org/conservation. http://www.swfwmd.state.fl.us/news/article/1090/

A just-published background article in Forbes online declares businessman T. Boone Pickens as the largest owner of groundwater rights in the United States.

A passage: “Pickens, 80, is also the largest private holder of permitted groundwater rights in the U.S. through Mesa Water, Inc. Pickens hopes to acquire the rights to sell 320,000 acre-feet of water annually to Texas municipalities, satisfying the annual needs of approximately 1.5 million Texans. Selling as much water as Mesa could pump would result in $165 million worth of water to Dallas each year.”

Since December 2007 the city of Tucson has upended an earlier policy and declined to provide water service to developments outside the city limits, on grounds that the extensions of service often have proven costly to taxpayers.

City Manager Mike Hein, who has pressed that policy, discussed it in some depth in an Arizona Daily Star article [October 26].

In one part of the Q and A:

Q: Does your stance mean that the city lacks enough water for future growth?
A: It would be ridiculous to assert that we have consensus on that issue. That is part of the ongoing water-wastewater study, so we can agree on exactly how much is here. I think there is an opportunity where we as a community can come to a consensus. Until that time, I feel no sense of obligation or rush, unless legally compelled to, to serve some of these areas.

At the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority’s 75th anniversary celebration Friday, October 24, General Manager Bill West announced a significant new water project to address the needs of the Interstate 35 and Highway 130 corridors. This area is experiencing major growth and the new project could yield as much as 25,000 to 30,000 acre-feet of water per year to help meet the water demands in the area.

Along with partners, GBRA is working on a new surface and groundwater conjunctive use project.

“GBRA filed a water permit application for diversion of unappropriated water out of the Guadalupe River at Gonzales,” said West. “This new water right, along with water from other sources, including groundwater, will help meet the water demands where major growth is occurring.”
According to West, the project could come online in the next five to seven years.

Speaking before an audience of about 300, West also announced the establishment of the new San Antonio Bay Foundation which will serve as a vehicle for the protection and preservation of the Bay and Estuary at the end of the Guadalupe River Basin. He also announced the upcoming publication of a three-volume book detailing the 75-year history of the GBRA written by board member emeritus John Taylor.

Contact: LaMarriol Smith Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority (830) 379-5822 lsmith@gbra.org

Am ambitious plan to redevelop the area near Aurora (in unincorporated Arapahoe County) – a large tract once used as a military bombing range – could fail due to a lack of available water rights.

The Denver-based Lend Lease Communities LLC had said it intended to turn the former military land into a mixed-use real-estate development. The conditions for that development included obtaining enough water, and that need seemed to have been met through an agreement with the Rangeview Metropolitan District and the Pure Cycle Corporation.

Plans also involved development, by Pure Cycle, of a pipeline connecting the Arkansas River Valley to the Denver metro area; the $400 million project would carry an estimated  40,000 acre-feet annually. Some reservoir development also was in planning.

But the details evidently have proven elusive. The developers said in a letter to the state land board, “We have consistently and publicly maintained that our vision for the Lowry Range project includes a sustainable water supply that could consist of an appropriate balance between renewable and nonrenewable sources, and provides adequate wastewater treatment facilities . . . [but] We have determined that various, essential pre-development conditions set forth in the development management services agreement dated June 22, 2007, are seemingly unlikely to be met by the end of the year.”

A staff report at the California Water Resources Control Board has advised that water rights assigned to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation at the Auburn Dam project on the American River be formally withdrawn by the state.

The reasons relate to the classic water right abandonment principle in prior appropriation states: If you don’t use the water, you lose the right. In this case, the staff argued, BuRec “failed to construct the project and apply water to beneficial use with due diligence.”

The board is scheduled to act on the proposal on December 2.

The Auburn project goes back many decades, but it was largely halted in 1976 when geologic conditions (and possibly the collapse of the Teton Dam in Idaho that year) led to slowdown. Little work has been done since on the dam.

[Sacramento Bee, October 28]

The Idaho Department of Water Resources on October 24 mailed letters to ground water users hydraulically connected to the Eastern Snake River Plain Aquifer warning of potential water curtailments of junior ground water rights next spring.
The warning letters were issued as part of a continuing response to water delivery calls made in 2005 by senior water right holders from seven water delivery organizations known as the Surface Water Coalition, and senior spring water users Blue Lakes Trout Company and Clear Springs Foods’ Snake River Farm facility.
The letters were sent to approximately 1,700 water right holders and affect approximately 3,000 water rights that could be subject to curtailment in 2009. If required, the curtailment orders could affect certain ground water users with junior water rights in portions of Gooding, Lincoln, Jerome, Cassia, Minidoka, Blaine, Bingham, Power, Jefferson, Bonneville, Butte, and Bannock counties in South Central and Eastern Idaho (see attached map). These include water rights for irrigation, commercial, industrial, municipal, non-exempt domestic uses, and other consumptive uses. Non-consumptive uses and culinary in-house uses of water will not be subject to curtailment under the water delivery calls.
Under a worst-case scenario curtailments in the spring of 2009 within the Surface Water Coalition delivery call area could affect water rights bearing priority dates junior to May 12, 1977. The worst-case scenario is based on 1977 conditions in which spring runoff was 45% of normal, the lowest runoff on record. Curtailments in 2009 within the Thousand Springs delivery call areas could affect water rights bearing priority dates junior to January 4, 1973.
A water delivery call is made when the holder of a senior water right experiences a shortfall in the amount of water the holder is authorized to receive and can put to beneficial use in accordance with Idaho law. Under the state’s conjunctive management rules, which incorporate the effects of ground water pumping on surface water supplies, IDWR requires the holders of junior water rights to mitigate or replace the effects of their depletions to the aquifer or stop diverting water. This is accomplished by submitting a written plan to IDWR or through voluntary or mandatory curtailment in order to allow more water to satisfy the senior water right.
Water delivery calls and curtailment orders are necessary to satisfy the IDWR director’s duty under Idaho law to administer water rights in accordance with the prior appropriation doctrine in times of shortage. Reasons for the water shortage resulting in the water calls include successive years of drought, ground water pumping and more efficient irrigation practices resulting in less recharge to the Eastern Snake River Plain Aquifer.
Information regarding the 2009 curtailment warning letters can be found on the Idaho Department of Water Resources’ web site at www.idwr.idaho.gov under the heading “Major Issues”
Contact: Bob McLaughlin 208-287-4828 Idaho Department of Water Resources

A U.S. District Court judge has rejected an attempt by California irrigators and logging industry groups to strip protected status from five populations of wild steelhead trout.

The ruling rejects two separate challenges to steelhead protection in California. In the first case, anti-environment group Pacific Legal Foundation, which represents loggers and water users, argued that the National Marine Fisheries Service must make Endangered Species Act listing decisions based simply on the numbers of hatchery steelhead produced each year.

PLF asked the court to remove five separate populations of steelhead from the list of endangered species based on the presence of hatchery fish. In the second case, a group of Central Valley irrigators argued that ocean-going Central Valley steelhead population should be removed from the endangered species list based on their opinion that freshwater resident rainbow trout might someday replace extinct steelhead populations.

The ruling marks the third time that federal courts on the West Coast have rejected arguments that all fish must be treated the same when making ESA listing decisions. In the other two rulings — issued in June, 2007 by a federal district judge in Seattle and in August, 2007 by a federal district judge in Oregon — the courts confirmed that wild and hatchery salmon and steelhead should be treated differently when assessing the health of a fish population. NMFS’s scientific advisors and experts unanimously concluded that it would be “biologically indefensible” to eliminate ESA protection for endangered salmon and steelhead based on the abundance of hatchery fish. Scientists emphasized that these fish need habitat to sustain themselves into the future while hatcheries rely on an artificial environment that doesn’t produce salmon and steelhead that survive well in the wild. PLF, however, asserted that NMFS was legally required to ignore these issues and simply count the total numbers of fish in making ESA listing decisions.

In addition, the court agreed with the conservation and fishing groups that NMFS may protect steelhead without including all freshwater resident rainbow trout in the protected population. Here again, the court found that protecting steelhead was supported by unanimous scientific evidence. The court’s ruling cites extensively from reports of three different committees of independent scientists who all confirmed that steelhead form the irreplaceable backbone of the population. The court concluded that “[i]t is undisputed that the steelhead life form is indispensable to the species as a whole. It would have been arbitrary for the agency to ignore to that reality.”

Contact: ?Steve Mashuda, Earthjustice, (206) 343-7340 x 27 ?Dougald Scott, Northern California Council Federation of Fly Fishers, (831) 427-1394 ?Kate Miller, Trout Unlimited, (503) 827-5700 ?David Hogan, Center for Biological Diversity, (760) 809-9244

The city of Great Falls, which only a short time ago moved to abandon some of its water rights dating to the 1800s, may wind up buying as much as $10 million in water rights to fill its city needs.

The old rights were abandoned because the city had not been using them; a water court probably would have declared the city had no right to them. Some residents had suggested the case be fought out in water court.

The new rights purchase could mean an increase in city water bills; one consultant estimated an increase of about 10%.