While Idaho water users have met one deadline, submitting groundwater management plans to the state Department of Water Resources by Sept. 1, another deadline is looming.

Junior groundwater users and senior surface water users have until Oct. 1 to submit an improved mitigation plan for assuring senior water rights are filled. With an aquifer that has declined over the years, that’s no easy task.

“In all of the groundwater management discussions, there have been really two competing strategies for managing the aquifer,” said Thomas J. Budge of the Racine Olson law firm, attorney for the Idaho Ground Water Association.

One of them, which is the one the groundwater users have been advocating for, is to stabilize the aquifer and keep farmland in production and figure out better ways to get water to the Surface Water Coalition when they need it.

Not effective

“We discovered that … shutting off a well in Mud Lake or Jerome or even Idaho falls is not a very effective way to get water to the coalition during times of water supply shortage,” he said.

Groundwater users have focused on how to meet the irrigation needs of the coalition in a way that keeps as much farmland in production as possible, he said.

The groundwater users’ goal for management is all about sustainability, maintaining stable aquifer levels and investing in infrastructure and management tools to help get the coalition water when they need it, he said.

Another strategy

“So that’s been our strategy. The competing plan has been ‘well let’s just dry up farmland until the aquifer rises and we raise the water table then more water comes out of the springs,” he said.

That’s one way to get more water to the coalition, it’s just very inefficient because exponentially more farmland has to be dried up than what the coalition needs in water, he said.

The coalition’s submitted groundwater management plan calls for raising the water table. The negotiations between the farmers are really taking more of a sustainability approach, he said.

“Those negotiations are going well, with the parties nearing an agreement. We are very encouraged by the good faith efforts by both sides to work together to find solutions that provide enough water to meet the irrigation needs of the SWC without drying up vast amounts of farmland,” he said.

Flawed methodology

But that’s not going to solve what groundwater users contend is a flawed methodology order for forecasting water supply and potential shortages.

The hope is the parties are able to finalize a working mitigation plan that will meet the water needs of the coalition in a way that keeps as much farmland in production as possible.

“If that happens, the parties will proceed under that mitigation plan and we won’t be back to having the department order curtailment under the methodology order,” he said.

That said, some groundwater users aren’t represented by a groundwater district, and they would remain subject to the methodology order going forward.

“But our hope is that IGWA (Idaho Groundwater Association) and the Surface Water Coalition are operating under a new mitigation plan,” he said.