South Idaho dairies still eyeing water solutions despite strong snowpack

Dairy operators in south Idaho will benefit, directly, if snowpack stays high enough to eliminate threats of water “calls” by senior rights holders, Idaho Dairymen’s Association Executive Director Bob Naerebout said.

Last year, 85 dairies with about 120,000 cows combined received curtailment notices, he said.

“Nobody was curtailed. We rented water, at a little over $200,000, and delivered it for late-season recharge,” Naerebout said. The dairies rented the water from North Side Canal Co., which delivered the water.
Late-season recharge involves allowing water, after irrigation season, to run through a canal system and, through seepage, to help recharge the aquifer, he said.
Dairies commonly use a combination of groundwater and surface water, said Naerebout, who is based in Twin Falls. Many of their water rights are junior in status – and subject to potential calls by senior rights holders including many surface water users – given the dairy industry’s growth in southern Idaho in the past 10 to 15 years, he said.
Idaho Department of Water Resources Director Dave Tuthill told the Senate Resources & Environment Committee March 10 that groundwater pumpers in south Idaho likely won’t have their water cut off this spring
“My expectation is there most likely won’t be a call for curtailment,” he said in a Twin Falls Times-News story carried by The Associated Press.
Enough snow has fallen this winter to allow well users to continue pumping from the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer, Tuthill said during a Senate confirmation hearing. He was appointed interim director at the start of 2007 and later was named permanent director.
Tuthill late last year sent out some 2,700 letters telling groundwater users that their pumps could be shut down if Idaho saw another winter of low mountain snowpack, the published report said. Now it appears spring runoff from snowpack will be sufficient to supply enough water for users, although snowpacks must stay 5 percent above average to avoid curtailments, he said.
The Natural Resources Conservation Service in early March pegged snowpacks at 95 to 130 percent of average depending on location.
Dairy operators don’t plan to ignore water supply issues this year, Naerebout said.
“It becomes important for all of us to look toward solutions for the years when we don’t have enough snowpack,” he said. One possibility would be to raise storage capacity behind some dams, which water managers and legislators have discussed, he said.
“The biggest thing is to fund solutions more permanent than relying on annual snowpack,” Naerebout said.