2025 Report to Members

Eastern Idaho Water Right Coalition Members:

Report on 2025 Activities

After a couple of very contentious years, 2025 was a year for making water management plans and implementing the terms of the 2025 Stipulated Agreement.  In the background was a water year that started with what appeared to be an adequate supply, but rapidly deteriorated as the summer season started. This resulted in a new July curtailment order from the IDWR dating clear back to October 11, 1900.  This means that virtually all wells on the ESPA that weren’t under a mitigation plan or were for domestic uses were subject to curtailment.

Coalition Activities were highlighted by two successful educational meetings.

First was a water storage seminar jointly sponsored with the Henry’s Fork Watershed Council.  We explored previous studies on the Henry’s Fork Basin to determine new potential water storage locations, including rebuilding the Teton Dam.

We also looked at other potential storage sites, such as raising Jackson and Minidoka Dams, or a major pumping recharge project to Mud Lake. The bottom line was that we need additional storage to capture excess water when it is available; all long-term solutions.

Our second major meeting was our annual meeting December 12.  In that meeting we took a look at what the Water Board, IDWR, Canals, and Groundwater Districts are doing to implement the 2025 Stipulated Agreement.  

We learned about the many things canals, both in East Idaho and in the Surface Water Coalition’s area in the Magic Valley, are doing to replace aging infrastructure with modern state or the art facilities to conserve water.  

We also learned how groundwater districts are using modern measurement and telemetry to better help their farmers know how much water they are using and when they need to conserve.  In addition, they are building additional managed recharge capacity, and doing soft conversions in order to improve aquifer levels.

Finally, the Coalition was able to increase its resources and ability to conduct these large meetings by expanding our sponsorship program.  A list of our 2025 sponsors is on the back of this newsletter.  Please let them know how much we appreciate their support. 

Best Regards,

Keith Esplin                                                                      Roger Warner                                                                                 Executive Director                                                          President                                                                            Eastern Idaho Water Rights Coalition                         

208.243.1824

THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS