Water users in the West have a long history of conflict over water rights, and Idaho is no different. But the last couple of years seem to have unraveled an unprecedented agreement that had calmed the water.

The most recent era began in 2005 when the Surface Water Coalition filed a water call on junior water rights. Over the next decade, water users spent their time in and out of court and arguing their case to the Idaho Department of Water Resources, said Paul Arrington, executive director of the Idaho Water Users Association.

“It was a pretty contentious window of time, much like we feel today, a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress and a lot of frustration,” he said during a webinar on July 18.

In 2015, the situation got to the point where the parties said they’ve got to stop fighting.

Working together

There was some forecasting that showed a pretty bad water year, pretty significant curtailments, and folks came to the table, negotiated a settlement agreement and were able to stop fighting for a time, he said.

“Over the next five or so years, we had significant levels of recharge, of efforts by everyone to really try and stem that decline of the aquifer … everybody was working together. It was really nice to see, a lot of pats on the back … and folks just feeling good about where we were going,” he said.

One of the most important elements of the agreement was it outlined a number of compliance actions that would give groundwater users a safe harbor from curtailment.

But a couple of things have happened since that has water users fighting again.

Updated modeling

The modeling that was used to support the agreement has been updated. The goals that were set were ambitious under the old modeling but not possible under the new updated understanding of the aquifer.

“Instead of 10 years, it was going to be more like 40 or maybe more years to achieve those goals that were set out in that 2015 agreement,” he said.

In addition, a couple of really dry years put the effort back to where it started.

Another point of conflict is the parties learned they didn’t quite interpret some of the key provisions of the agreement the same way.

“This has led to disputes over that agreement, some of them are still pending in court,” he said.

Conflict returns

So in 2021, there started to be some fracturing in the positive relationships and some of the stress came back into the process.

Then in 2023, the director issued an order to update the methodology by which the department will move through the priority administration process. The methodology has been updated several times as the model has been updated and as case law told the department what it has to do.

“And it has spawned some litigation as well, some of which is still pending,” he said.

The order changed some of the processes in the methodology that effectively will result in an increased likelihood of injury and larger curtailments orders.

This could be the most complex challenge the state has faced, he said.

“But I am hopefully optimistic that we will be able to find a path forward,” he said.