Idaho Water News
Our Legislature cannot afford to neglect Idaho’s water future
Bedke announces agreement has been reached in mitigation plan
The 208 | Liquid assets: The fight for Idaho's water
Gov. Little sits down with East Idaho News to discuss water dispute, aquifer, and what's next
Water curtailment solution meeting brings parties together
‘This affects every single person.’ VanderSloot urges community, leaders to act on longterm water solution
Frank Vandersloot Statement at Melaleuca Freedom Celebration
“It’s a broken system” – Idaho farmer reacts to state water battle
Gov. Little signs executive order to protect Idaho water sovereignty
Gov. Brad Little holds news conference on water curtailment issue
VanderSloot: Why did the stock price of Idaho Power jump when governor told farmers he was turning off their wells?
Water Curtailment Order Lifted For East Idaho Farmers
Gov. Little applauds successful negotiations to avoid eastern Idaho water curtailment
Lt. Governor Bedke’s statement on ongoing water users’ negotiations for 2024’s water certainty
“There is still work to do” – Farmers moving forward after water curtailment cancelled
Order Revising April 2024 Forecast Supply and Amending Curtailment Order (Methodology Steps 5 & 6)
Stay informed with Idaho's latest water legislation, reservoir contents, major issues involving water rights, and more.
EIWRC News
Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition Members:
The next Coalition board meeting will be April 10, from 11:30 till about 1:30 in the Idaho Falls City Council Chambers at 680 Park Ave. Note that this is one week later than our normal meeting date. All Coalition members are welcome to attend, but please RSVP for a meal count. I’ll send out a Zoom link later with a reminder.
We will be discussing plans for upcoming educational meetings, along with our regular business.
The draft minutes of our last Coalition board meeting are attached. Please let me know if you have any changes or additions.
Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition Members:
The past month has seen an improvement in the projected water supply for Eastern Idaho. Continuing the pattern or the past couple of years, the snowpack is lowest on the Henry’s Fork and above Jackson Lake. It gets progressively better moving to the south.
The NRCS reports that we’ve had 98% of average precipitation above Milner, with 103% of average snowpack. The range is from 115% of average on the Willow / Blackfoot / Portneuf basins to a low of 88% on the Henry’s Fork, as reported by Rob Van Kirk.
However, I should remind everyone that when we speak of percentages, it is the percentage of average. In other words, if average is a C grade then perhaps were looking at a “B” on the Willow to Portneuf basins, but more like a “D” on the Henry’s Fork. All still passable grades, but not as good as we would like to see.
The Bureau of Reclamation reports that their Heise run-off prediction is 94% of average, the same as last year. However, both the Henry’s Fork and more southern basins are predicted to be about 10% less than last year. The Upper Snake River storage system is 79% full, with American Falls at 88% full. Total storage is 323,000 acre-feet less than last year, but 359,000 more than the median. The reservoir system should fill, but perhaps not all at the same time. One caution is that soils remain dryer than average, which could lead to a less productive run-off.
Good news is that we have entered a much needed wet spell. Projections are that we will have above normal precipitation for the next couple of weeks.
As far as recharge potential is concerned, it is still too early to say. There may well be some spill at Milner sometime in April, but it all depends on the weather and irrigation demand. The Bureau of Reclamation says that if there is Milner spill and recharge rights come in to priority they may only be available for a few days. Water District #01 says that everyone should get their temporary permits filed and be ready to go as soon as water is available – if it does become available.
Bottom line is that “average” or a C grade should supply and adequate surface water supply. In fact, at this point the Bureau expects to rent 150,000 acre-feet of Upper Snake storage water for its flow augmentation program for salmon. However, we really need an A or B grade of snowpack in order to have adequate water for recharge. Time will tell.
Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition Members:
The draft minutes of the Coalition’s February 6 board meeting are attached. A couple of the attendees were missed. If you attended, but your name is not in the minutes, please let me know.
Our next board meeting will be Thursday, March 6, from 11:30 to 1:30 in the Blackfoot City Council chambers at 157 North Broadway, in Blackfoot. All Coalition members are welcome to attend, but please RSVP for a lunch count.
Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition Members:
This is an excerpt from a report from Senator Cook. Here he discusses a resolution to study potential water storage projects, including the reconstruction of the Teton Dam.
Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition Members:
One of the Coalition’s ongoing activities is to fund an expert to attend the modeling meetings of the ESPA (Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer). This report from Thane Kindred is from the latest modeling meeting. This meeting included a discussion of one of the Idaho Water Resource Board’s most successful recharge sites, Mile Post 31, as well as possible calibrations to the model.
Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition Members:
Below is the latest flow forecast for the spring run-off on various river reaches. This represents an improvement from the January 1st forecast. Note, that the NRCS says the snow pack above King Hill is 96%, however the Bureau of Reclamation is only predicting a run-off at Heise of 80% of median. This is likely due to the soils being very dry, with more of the run-off expected to be absorbed into the ground.
Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition Members:
Our next Coalition board meeting will be next Thursday, February 6, from 11:30 till about 1:30 at the office of Parsons, Behle & Latimer, 350 Memorial Drive, Suite 300, Idaho Falls. All members are welcome to attend, but please RSVP for a lunch count. A link to join the meeting via Microsoft Teams is here.
Meeting ID: 263 150 358 397
Passcode: by3i5fm9
The meeting agenda is attached. Included will be a presentation from Cooper Fritz, IDWR, regarding recharge wells. We will also discuss the Coalition budget, water legislation, and this summer’s Legislative Water College Tour.
Again, please RSVP.
Idaho Law Review: Restoring The Public Interest Component of the Prior Appropriation Doctrine in Conjunctive Management of the ESPA
Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition Members:
Click here to view one of the orders President Trump issued on his first day in office. Other orders will likely impact issues regarding the lower Snake River dams.
Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition Members:
We had a great annual Coalition Meeting yesterday, with the goal of examining the new Settlement Agreement between the Surface Water Coalition (SWC) and the Idaho Groundwater Appropriators (IGWA). We had about 100 people in attendance with another 18 Zoom connections. We appreciate and thank our speakers and everyone that made the meeting a success.
Click here for a meeting summary prepared by Bob Turner of IGWA, with the help of AI.
Click here for a link to watch the entire presentation.
Click here to view Adam Young's presentation slides.
Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition Members:
While it is still early in the new water year, the Upper Snake River Basin is once again well below average conditions. Above normal snowfall will be needed during the rest of the winter to fill the entire reservoir system and provide a full water supply.
Here are some of the main points:
- The Upper Snake Reservoir system is currently 51% full, compared to 57% last year.
- The system, while near average, is 231,000 acre-feet below last year and is filling slower, due to lower base flows into the reservoirs.
- Palisades Reservoir is currently holding about 265,000 acre-feet less water than last year.
- Soil moisture levels are below last year, which could result in lower run-off when the snow melts next spring.
- Water year precipitation in the whole basin is currently 57% of median, with the snowpack at 66%.
- Forecasts continue to call for slightly above average precipitation, but when the storms arrive they are generally less productive than predicted.
- Confidence of a weak La Nina developing have dropped, meaning there may be no trends to predict this winter’s precipitation.
- With the American Falls Reservoir near last year’s levels, it is possible there could be recharge water available next spring, even if Palisades Reservoir does not fill.
Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition Members:
For 17 years “flow augmentation” water has been released from Idaho reservoirs to aid in salmon and steelhead migration to the ocean. This includes water from our Upper Snake Reservoirs. This year the amount of water sent downstream from Upper Snake River storages – not natural flow – was roughly double the shortage of the Twin Falls Canal, which led to the massive curtailment order last spring.
The information below, provided by the Idaho Water Users Association, summarizes an Idaho Department of Fish and Game study on the impacts of the flow augmentation.
Flow Aug & Salmon Survival: Over the last year or so, the Idaho Department of Fish & Game has analyzed flow augmentation and its impacts on survival of out-migrating salmon and steelhead. The Fish Passage Center recently released a draft 2024 Comparative Survival Study that discussed this F&G analysis. You can review this discussion in Chapter 7 of the report (pdf page 256). The report concludes:
We used vastly improved fish detection datasets and survival models to demonstrate that the flow augmentation program as implemented over the past 17 years did not yield appreciable benefits to anadromous fishes in the Snake River basin. Our analysis evaluated the outcome of a long-standing management action as required for adaptive management and begins to address a state’s policy recommendation within the scope of the CSS project.
We do not attribute this result to a lack of flow/survival relationship as suggested in the past because the strength of that relationship is implicit in the model framework included in Chapter 3 of this report. The complexity of moving water across the landscape and water accounting associated with established laws and agreements hinder the ability to place water at times and places (i.e., shaping) most beneficial to anadromous fishes. In a given year, water can be released to coincide with peak flow, in which case its contribution to total flow, survival, and travel time is low. Alternatively, water can be released when flows are lower, but fewer fish are present to potentially benefit. Attempts to find a middle ground will lead to water being spread out over time to ensure that realized benefits to anadromous fishes are negligible. Our analysis underscores the difficulty of using water as the sole management action to decrease water transit time and increase fish survival in the lower Snake River.
Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition Members:
The Coalition would like to welcome the following new members:
- International Farming, a farm investment company dating back to 1827.
- Idahoan Foods
- The Bank of Commerce
We appreciate the support of these new Coalition members and welcome their input and involvement.
Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition Members:
Note: I am passing on information as contained in the East Idaho News and not expressing my or the Coalition’s opinion on its content.
In this first clip from East Idaho News, Frank VanderSloot accuses Idaho Power of blowing up the negotiations to develop a Groundwater Management Area Plan for the Eastern Snake Aquifer. That unfinished plan now goes to the Idaho Department of Water Resources, since no agreement was reached by the September 1 deadline. (This was a separate process from the negotiations to settle the water call with the Surface Water Coalition. Those farmer to farmer negotiations appear to be making good progress.)
This is a link to Idaho Power’s response to Frank VanderSloot’s accusations.
Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition Members:
We would like to thank our local sponsors for helping with our Legislative Water College Tour, which the Coalition hosted yesterday, Aug 27, along with the Idaho Water Users Association.
Bank of Commerce
Idahoan Foods
Anheuser Busch
Dean Mortimer – Comfort Construction
In addition we would like to welcome the Bank of Commerce and Idahoan Foods as new members of the Coalition.
The support of all our members and sponsors is very much appreciated as we work to further the goals of the Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition, especially during these challenging times.
Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition Members:
The Idaho Water Resources Board (IWRB) is offering grants for conversions from groundwater to surface water. If it is a hard conversion – meaning the well will no longer be used, the IWRB will pay up to 75%. If it’s a soft conversion – meaning the well will still be in place to use when needed – the IWRB will pay up to 50%. Details are on the following link:
IWRB Ground Water to Surface Water Conversion Grant Criteria
This program could be an excellent way to help irrigators convert irrigation back to surface water, where available. This can also help the Groundwater Districts meet the pumping reductions that will be required in upcoming plans.
Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition Members:
Here are some links to coverage of Governor Little’s address to the Greater Idaho Falls Chamber of Commerce and the tractor demonstration against the State curtailment actions. Various reports claimed there were from 60 to 125 tractors in the demonstration.
This first link is from KIFI TV 8 and has a link to the governor’s address. I highly recommend you listen to the Governor’s talk and the thoughtful questions that were asked following it. There is also a link to the tractor demonstration.
This link is a report from the East Idaho News.
This link shows an interview on Fox Business with Blackfoot farmer, Brian Murdock. It starts with a review of previous coverage and then explains the reason for this demonstration.
News Articles - Stay current with all of the latest water news articles.
Current Water Curtailment Order
Thank you for visiting. To learn more about water related issues we face in Eastern Idaho, please visit our Idaho Water News page. If you wish to have a part in preserving our precious resources, please visit our Get Involved page.
Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition 2024 Goals
- Participate actively in water legislation development and related political actions.
- Conduct water education for legislators including ESPA GMA plans and a Legislative Water College Tour in Eastern Idaho.
- Monitor and participate in the ESPA Groundwater Management Area process.
- Continue to fund an expert to participate on the ESPA Aquifer Modeling Committee, but with abbreviated reports.
- Help non-city municipal water providers find a better path to be a part of the SWC agreement and ESPA GMA.
EIWRC Mission Statement
The Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition understands the vital importance of water to Eastern Idaho's economy now and in the future. The coalition provides a strong and unified voice to protect water rights critical for economic growth in Eastern Idaho and promotes discussion and ideas that will best enhance the utilization of water for future economic development.
Contact the EIWRC
Financial Disclosure
The Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition was formed and registered in 2007 in the State of Idaho as non-profit, tax-exempt corporation. A similar designation under Section 501©(3) of the IRS code is pending. A letter verifying the tax-exempt status of the EIWRC can be obtained by contacting us at: Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition, c/o Keith Esplin, 593 East 5th South, Rexburg, ID 83440. Financial summary information for the Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition is contained in its annual report.