Ridenbaugh Press/Water Rights

As requested by the Special Master for the Gila River Adjudication, on May 31, 2012 the Arizona Department of Water Resources filed a report that addresses federal reserved water rights issues associated with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Third Amended Statement of Claimant No. 39-13610 for SPRNCA, which is located within the San Pedro River Watershed.

The 2012 SPRNCA report includes a description of the project area and ADWR’s analyses and evaluation of federal claims together with supporting figures and appendices.

From the opening section of the report:

“This report concerns amended Statement of Claim (SOC) No. 39-13610 filed by the U.S. Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management for federal reserved water rights within the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area. Congress established SPRNCA under the Arizona-Idaho Conservation Act of 1988, which became law on November 18, 1988.1 In section 102(d) of the Act, Congress reserved water rights for SPRNCA and directed the Secretary of the Interior to file a claim to quantify those rights as part of a stream adjudication. 16 U.S.C. § 460xx-1. In 1989, BLM filed its water rights claim in the general stream adjudication for the Gila River System and Source.

“In 1991, the BLM amended its SOC shortly before the Arizona Department of Water Resources issued a Final Hydrographic Survey Report for the San Pedro River Watershed, which included an analysis of BLM’s water rights claims for SPRNCA. On January 31, 2006, pursuant to order dated November 8, 2005 of the Special Master for the Gila River Adjudication, the BLM amended SOC No. 39-13610 again. Thereafter, by order dated September 26, 2006, the Special Master initiated Contested Case No. W1-11-232 to address objections to the watershed file reports that were associated with SPRNCA. These WFRs had been published in the San Pedro Final HSR and assigned a unique contested case number. The Special Master listed these WFRs in Attachment A to the September 26, 2006 Order, and consolidated them into Contested Case No. W1-11-232.”

Oklahoma’s water future looks much brighter thanks to the show of support from Governor Mary Fallin and legislative leaders during the session that adjourned last Friday, the director of the state’s water agency said May 30.

“On the heels of the most scientifically defensible and extensively vetted Water Plan ever developed by the state, the Governor and Legislature responded with perhaps the most meaningful collection of water policy legislation and funding in Oklahoma history,” according to J.D. Strong, Executive Director of the Oklahoma Water Resources Board. “Due to the courageous approach of State leaders in addressing Oklahoma’s many critical water problems, the dedication of Joint Legislative Water Committee members, and a significant educational campaign, we now have both the directive and tools necessary to meet head-on Oklahoma’s water challenges through revitalized water management and protection programs.”

First and foremost, Strong points out, water conservation took a giant leap forward through passage of Speaker of the House Kris Steele’s Water for 2060 Act, which makes Oklahoma the first state in the nation to establish a comprehensive, statewide goal of consuming no more fresh water in 2060 than is consumed today. A 15-member advisory council will be created to recommend appropriate water conservation practices, incentives and educational programs to accomplish this bold strategy, while at the same time ensuring that Oklahoma’s population and economy continue to grow and prosper.

“Throughout development of the 2012 Update of the Oklahoma Comprehensive Water Plan, time and again the public stressed the importance of eliminating waste and preserving our dwindling water supplies,” adds Strong. A related measure, HB 2835 by Rep. Scott Martin, will encourage widespread recycling of gray water. The new law exempts the use of up to 250 gallons per day of private, residential gray water from regulatory requirements when used for household gardening, composting or landscape irrigation, thus conserving fresh water supplies.

Equally important, legislators also rose to the challenge of meeting Oklahoma’s projected $82 billion water and wastewater infrastructure financing needs through HJR 1085 by Rep. Phil Richardson and Sen. Brian Crain. The resolution authorizes State Question 764 on the November general election ballot, which seeks voter approval of a new Credit Enhancement Reserve Fund. The crucial new Fund would enable the OWRB, which currently provides low-interest financing for approximately 70 percent of water and sewer infrastructure in Oklahoma, to increase its leveraging capacity. Should the measure fail, the agency’s Financial Assistance Program would be reduced to funding only five to ten percent of infrastructure needs over the next 50 years, ultimately resulting in increased rates for drinking water and sewer customers across Oklahoma. To date, the FAP has approved almost $2.7 billion in projects.

Last but certainly not least, last week’s budget agreement includes specific funding to expand and integrate the state’s water quality and quantity monitoring programs, another key provision of the OCWP.

“You can’t manage what you don’t measure,” Strong affirmed. “Through almost five years of public input central to development of the Water Plan, the citizens of Oklahoma made it abundantly clear that they want their water agencies to have the data and information necessary to ensure that sound water decisions are made. Governor Fallin and the Legislature responded with $2 million in additional appropriations with which the OWRB and Conservation Commission will expand and improve our data collection capabilities.” Most notably, the OWRB will use a portion of the funding to establish the state’s first comprehensive groundwater monitoring program. The Legislature also extended utilization of Gross Production Tax proceeds for OCWP implementation, including support of planning partnership opportunities, updates of hydrologic studies, and enhancement of water management and modeling tools.

In all, bills passed during the 2012 legislative session will accelerate implementation of four of the eight priority recommendations included in the 2012 OCWP Update (Water Quality and Quantity Monitoring; Water Supply Reliability; Water Conservation, Efficiency, Recycling and Reuse; and Water Project and Infrastructure Funding). Additional legislation providing for improved enforcement of water well drilling regulations and enhanced floodplain management rules address at least two OCWP supporting recommendations.

“We are off to a tremendous start on Water Plan implementation, but there is still much to do,” Strong emphasizes. “Regional planning, for example, was the most popular Water Plan recommendation among citizen participants because it allows them to engage more formally in how water resources are planned at the local level and managed by the state. However, enabling legislation was narrowly defeated due to the negative lobbying efforts of certain special interest groups. Additionally,” adds Strong,” we must redouble our efforts to work with Oklahoma’s tribal governments to resolve conflicting water issues. And we still need to ensure adequate protection of instream flows that are so critical to state and local tourism economies. So while the Water Board and our multitude of partners made great strides this year, primarily due to the steadfast support of our leaders at the State Capitol, we recognize that considerable work lies ahead.”

The Bureau of Reclamation has released for public review and comment a negotiated contract for the Virginia L. Lempesis Separate Property Trust, which contains terms and conditions for the adjustment and settlement of Claimed Water Rights Water from the San Joaquin River.
The negotiated contract, which Reclamation intends to execute by October 1, 2012, provides for up to 600 acre-feet per year of water from the Mendota Pool near Fresno Slough for the irrigation of about 215 acres of land.

The draft contract is being released for a 60-day public review period, from May 30, 2012 through July 30, 2012. The documents, which include a Categorical Exclusion Checklist, were prepared in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act. If you encounter problems accessing the document, please call 916-978-5100 or e-mail mppublicaffairs@usbr.gov.

It’s on a much smaller scale than irrigation-level water users might take note of, but it may be an indicator of what the combination of hard times and dry times can lead to.

ABC 15 television in Phoenix, Arizona reported on May 29 that “Manuel Ovalle was caught on tape May 21 carrying bags of pool water away from a neighbor’s house in Mesa. Police said Ovalle claimed he stole the water because he had no running water at his own place.”

Although parts of Texas are now officially out of or nearly out of drought, over 80 percent of the state is still in the three worst categories of drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. With several reservoirs at historic lows, the drought is still a top priority for the Texas Water Development Board and many other state agencies.

This time last year Texas was beginning to experience the effects of what would turn out to be the most intense one-year drought in the history of our state. Wildfires, agricultural losses, and water shortages started making headlines last spring. A headline from CNN News dated April 18, 2011, read Fires burn across Texas with no end in sight. The drought raged on throughout the summer, contributing to the Bastrop County Complex fire that began on September 4 and was the most destructive wildfire in state history. The 34,000-acre inferno destroyed over 1,600 homes and killed two people. These forest fire statistics (from the Texas Forest Service) demonstrate how devastating the fires were: 30,457 fires; 3,993,716 acres burned; 3,017 homes destroyed; 2,792 other structures destroyed.

The dramatic nature of these fires caught the attention of the people of Texas as they were broadcast on local and national news. Equally dramatic was the impact to farmers and ranchers. The intense heat and rainfall deficits resulted in the costliest drought in Texas history.

When drought extends over a period of months, the water supply is eventually affected. Many water suppliers around the state watched their water sources dry up under record high evaporation rates and record low rainfall. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality reported that over 1,000 water suppliers instituted some form of watering restrictions from last summer through March. Many communities are considering the possibility of instituting these restrictions on a permanent basis. Because several water suppliers continue to report a limited supply, they have been requesting emergency funding to access new water sources.

To assist in the relief effort, various state agencies have been activating drought response initiatives. The Texas Department of Agriculture made $5,000,000 in community development block grants available to water suppliers experiencing emergency supply shortages. The TWDB also provided $2,750,000 in financial assistance to the city of Robert Lee to build a pipeline for emergency water supplies.

With the signing of Senate Bill 148, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback has put in place a series of legislation designed to conserve the state’s water supply and extend the life of the Ogallala Aquifer. Gov. Brownback has a personal commitment to the Ogallala effort and has made it a top priority for his administration.

“It is essential that we help protect, extend and conserve the life of the Ogallala Aquifer for future generations of Kansans, while also supporting today’s western Kansas economy,” Gov. Brownback said.

The Ogallala Aquifer is the main source of water in the western third of Kansas. Counties located above the Ogallala Aquifer account for roughly two thirds of the state’s agricultural economic value. Without Ogallala water, significant portions of the region’s agriculture and all of its related businesses could not be sustained, manufacturing could not continue, recreational opportunities would diminish and the towns in the area would cease to exist.

The water policy changes passed this session include:

* House Bill 2451 eliminates the state’s “use it or lose it” water policy in areas closed to new water right appropriations and gives landowners incentive to conserve water because they won’t feel that they must use their maximum amount of water when they don’t need to just so they don’t lose water rights.

* Senate Bill 272 amends multi-year flex accounts to expand irrigators’ capabilities and options so they can manage their crop water over a 5-year period without increasing long-term water use under their water right.

* House Bill 2516 amends the state’s water banking program. The changes provide for more permanence in water banks and allow additional water banks to be developed where local producers find it to be a tool that will help them in conserving water and protecting the economy. A water bank allows the short term lease (up to 10 years) of water rights at a price set by the seller and agreed to by the buyer.

* House Bill 2517 extends the sunset to make the Water Transition Assistance Program (WTAP) by 10 years to the year 2022 and makes other improvements to the program. The purpose of this voluntary, incentive-based water right retirement program is to provide a structured mechanism for the permanent dismissal of irrigation water rights and the reduction of consumptive groundwater use in focused, over-appropriated areas.

* Senate Bill 310 establishes a process through groundwater management districts (GMDs) that allows local communities of producers to collectively decide their future by initiating the implementation of conservation plans that meet their local goals.

* Senate Bill 148 makes clear the authority of a water right owner to divide that water right into two or more distinct water rights without losing priority.

Work on reforming the state’s water laws began a year ago when the Brownback administration started planning the Ogallala Aquifer Water Summit. Hundreds of Kansans attended that summit in Colby, which provided a forum for stakeholders to discuss their concerns, ideas and visions for the future. From there, the Ogallala Aquifer Advisory Committee reviewed short and long term water goals. Then the Kansas Water Authority developed the water reform legislative agenda presented to the Kansas Legislature for its consideration.

In addition, the Kansas Department of Agriculture and the Kansas Water Office were charged by the Governor to develop initiatives in cooperation with the KWA that would help create a balance between extending the life of the aquifer and providing the resources necessary to support that state’s largest industry – agriculture.

The Department of Water Resources on May 23 estimated it will be able to deliver 65 percent of requested State Water Project water this year. This is up from the 60 percent delivery estimate – or allocation – announced on April 16.

Originally, DWR projected in November that it would be able to supply 60 percent of the slightly more than 4 million acre-feet of SWP water requested, but a dry December, January and February dropped that figure to 50 percent.

A wet March and above-average reservoir storage boosted the allocation back up to 60 percent in April, and today’s increase to 65 percent is due to April’s wetter-than-usual weather.

A 65 percent allocation is not unusually low.

Wet conditions last year allowed the SWP to deliver 80 percent of the slightly more than 4 million acre-feet requested by the 29 public agencies that supply more than 25 million Californians and nearly a million acres of irrigated farmland. An acre-foot is 325,851 gallons of water, enough to cover one acre to a depth of one foot. The final allocation was 50 percent in 2010, 40 percent in 2009, 35 percent in 2008, and 60 percent in 2007. The last 100 percent allocation — difficult to achieve even in wet years due to pumping restrictions to protect threatened and endangered fish – was in 2006.

April rainfall was 167 percent of normal in the mountainous area between the American River and Lake Shasta that produces much of California’s water supply. The April rainfall total in the San Joaquin River basin was 137 percent of average.

Water content in this year’s sparse mountain snowpack was only 55 percent of normal on April 1, the time of year it’s usually at its peak.

Reservoir storage has been the one consistent bright spot in the water supply picture this year. Lake Oroville in Butte County, the SWP’s principal storage reservoir with a capacity of 3.5 million acre-feet, is 99 percent full (116 percent of average for the date). Lake Shasta north of Redding the federal Central Valley Project’s largest reservoir with a capacity of 4.5 million acre-feet, is 97 percent full (110 percent of average for the date).

The Bureau of Reclamation reports that although the upper Klamath Basin received a large influx of snow in March and early April, warmer than normal conditions have caused an early melt off, resulting in the loss of much of the projected Upper Klamath Lake inflows due to operational requirements. The most recent calculation of available water supply suggests a shortage of approximately 70,000 acre-feet of expected demand through the end of the irrigation season.

It is possible that a significant amount of this shortage could be mitigated with incentives through Klamath Water and Power Agency’s mitigation programs, to both pump groundwater and to fallow certain lands later in the irrigation season. However, at this time, not enough lands have been identified for fallowing to avoid having to curtail water deliveries later in the year. The deadline for the land fallowing program is June 1 and Klamath Project contractors are encouraged to apply if they wish to be considered.

If water shortages are expected after consideration of the applications received, Klamath Project contractors will be notified in accordance with the 2012 Drought Plan.

The Idaho Department of Water Resources reported in May that it has a number of recommendations remaining that are “based on permit,” some of which have been licensed and some not.

It was asking the SRBA Court how best to proceed.
The department said that about 60 such recommendations have been partially decreed but not licensed. Another 29 have been partially decreed and later licensed by the IDWR. And it said that about 4 recommendations based on permit have not been partially decreed, or licensed by the department.

A recently finalized U.S. Geological Survey groundwater study will be used to evaluate water right applications in the Yakima River Basin, the Department of Ecology said on May 21.

Letters have been sent to some 116 applicants for new ground and surface water permits in the Wide Hollow and Moxee sub-basins letting them know their requests will be among the first to be considered now that the state-of-the-art scientific study and model is complete.

Released last fall, the USGS study indicates pumping from underground aquifers draws water from the river and contributes to surface water shortages in the basin. The impacts are particularly felt in July and August when senior water right holders such as irrigators and fisheries need it most. The information in the study reinforces that ground and surface waters in the basin must be managed as one resource.

Applicants are asked to consider a number of options to help the agency in making permit decisions about their proposed water use in the context of study results. Ecology anticipates that new water uses in the Wide Hollow and Moxee sub-basins will require mitigation to offset the expected impacts of a new withdrawal on the river and senior users. Mitigation may be achieved by obtaining coverage under a senior water right.

The model numerically characterizes the interaction between underground aquifers and surface water in the basin. It also provides the scientific information for identifying how mitigation may be accomplished to offset the impacts of new water permits.

“How water resources will be managed in the Yakima River Bain has been the focus of study and evaluation for two decades,” said Maia Bellon, Water Resources Program Manager for Ecology. “The USGS study tells us that water drawn from deep aquifers reduces surface water at a greater rate than previously thought. It is imperative that we protect the resource and the rights of senior water users. By doing so, we protect the tremendous economic and environmental values of the basin.”

Water is in short supply in the Yakima Basin, with rationing of irrigation water having occurred several times over the past 20 years, most recently in 2005.

“The good news is that we’re on the cusp of a number of water enhancement opportunities that should provide a profoundly different water future in the basin,” Bellon said. “Water leaders have embraced the goals of the Yakima Basin Integrated Water Management Plan to increase water storage and restore fish passage at the basin’s reservoirs.”

The integrated plan spells out a strategy for developing water markets to provide opportunities for new water uses in the Yakima River Basin through the acquisition of existing senior water rights.

“Until these long-term water strategies are in place, we’ll need to find a way to live within the resources available to us now,” Bellon said. “We’re inviting stakeholders to explore these options for water banks, water reserve programs and the sale and transfer of water rights to new uses. This will allow the basin’s agricultural and economic base to prosper while protecting its natural resources.”

For the last three decades, Yakima County Superior Court has been formally determining surface water rights through the adjudication process. The adjudication is near final and will codify senior surface water priority in the basin.

Beginning in 1999, Ecology put an administrative hold on requests for new groundwater permits in Kittitas, Yakima and parts of Benton County because of uncertainty about the legal availability of water.

At that time, Ecology in partnership with USGS, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Yakama Nation launched the study to better understand the interaction between groundwater and surface water and develop a hydraulic model to describe what impact new groundwater pumping would have at various times of the year in the basin.

The request for the study was part of a settlement with the Yakama Nation and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation resulting from appeals of several dozen groundwater permits Ecology issued in 1993 in the Moxee Basin. In those appeals, both the Nation and Reclamation claimed new groundwater pumping intercepted surface water supplies and threatened fisheries and their more senior water rights.