April 2009
U.S. Water News Online
BOISE, Idaho — An Idaho Senate committee has approved three bills that would help the state settle a dispute over water rights on the Snake River.
Senate President Pro Tem Bob Geddes, a Soda Springs Republican, told a joint meeting of the House and Senate Resources Committees that “these three bills are monumental.”
The bills passed the Senate committee unanimously and next go before the full Senate. If successful there, they go to the House.
Part of a proposed settlement announced last month by Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter, the bills would reaffirm the provisions of the original 1984 water rights agreement known as the Swan Falls Agreement. That pact governs how much Snake River water the Idaho Power Co., the state's largest utility, is allowed to use at its Swan Falls dam south of here.
The bills also resolve water rights upstream of the Swan Falls dam and describe how future water rights would be determined.
Idaho Power challenged the Swan Falls pact in 5th District Court in May 2007. The utility claimed it was being shorted on the amount of water the agreement promised to deliver to the dam. Under the agreement, Idaho Power received the right to 5,600 cubic feet per second minimum flow during winter months, and 3,900 cfs in summer at the dam. Anything above those flows can be used by the state for whatever it chooses.
Utility lawyers argued that drought and a significant drawdown of the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer from groundwater pumping had reduced flows in the river and impinged on the utility's ability to generate power.
Idaho Power also sought to clarify its rights to water above the seasonal minimum flows. Rights to those flows, as set forth in the Swan Falls agreement, have been held in trust by the state and used for irrigating crops and recharging the depleted aquifer upstream of the dam.
The proposed settlement clarifies that water rights held in trust by the state of Idaho can be diverted for uses such as aquifer recharge.
In return, the state has agreed to back Idaho Power if it seeks to raise consumer rates to recoup any lost revenue directly related to the state's decision to use trust water to recharge the aquifer.
The proposed settlement is similar to legislation that was defeated in the Idaho Senate in 2006 after the power company waged a public campaign against it.
The utility's lawyer, James Tucker, told the committee that after 2006 “we started to look at things a bit differently.”
Tucker said Idaho Power agreed to the proposed settlement to ensure that it collaborates with the state on what is best for customers in the area.