“I’m getting fatigued on the problem. I want to focus on solutions,” says Jake Stander, a fifth-generation grower near Blackfoot.
This spring, Stander faced water curtailment, which would have impacted 70% of his acres. “Our options were shut water off or get fined 300 dollars an acre,” he explains. “In my case, that would have been close to a half-million-dollar fine, which on a year like this I can’t eat, but I also can’t eat having all of my investment in my crops and walking away.”
On May 30, a curtailment order was issued in response to the Surface Water Coalition’s delivery call, addressing a projected 74,100 acre-feet shortage for Twin Falls Canal Co. The order affected 6,400 junior water rights across six eastern and south-central Idaho groundwater districts, potentially cutting off water to 500,000 acres.
The timing of the curtailment, which hit at a critical point in the growing season, left many growers frustrated, especially as it coincided with a year of excess water. “Having a water call put on the 30th of May was emotionally draining and devastating to families, farms, employees and everyone,” says Brian Jensen, who farms across Bonneville and Jefferson counties. “We all knew there were some issues and disagreements about what was going on and how [the water] should be mitigated, but an actual curtailment telling us that we had to shut water off – I don’t think many people knew that was going to actually happen.”
Adam Young, a third-generation grower in Bingham County, recalls the frustration. "The day the curtailment order came out, I was driving through Fort Hall, and the Blackfoot River was flooding over its banks into someone's yard," Young says. "We had flood warnings in Teton County, and the highways in Tetonia were flooded. You can imagine the deep frustration many of us felt in a year like this.”
Young, who also serves on the Bingham Ground Water District’s board, had some indication that the issue was coming to a head, but the specifics were unclear until the order was issued. “When the curtailment order first came out, we had to shut off some water. Fortunately, we were in the process of cutting hay, so the timing somewhat aligned with the order. However, for our grain crops, we faced a tough decision. Shutting off the water at that critical stage would have severely damaged our crops, and keeping water off for the rest of the season would have potentially bankrupted us. We had no choice but to work out a temporary agreement, even if it meant risking fines or penalties. It was a matter of survival for our farm.”
A temporary agreement on June 13 led Idaho Department of Water Resources (IDWR) Director Mathew Weaver to pause field inspections, citing "substantial progress" in negotiations with four groundwater districts. The 2024 agreement requires all users in the Eastern Snake River Plain Aquifer to adhere to a new water rights plan following Idaho's "first in time, first in right" doctrine.
Despite varying opinions and frustrations, there’s a shared belief among growers: Idaho doesn’t have a water problem; rather, a challenge in distribution management.
Corbin Knowles, who spent nearly two decades with the IDWR and now runs Basin Wide Water LLC, assisting growers with water management and flow meter service, offers a unique perspective. “What the [IDWR] did this spring, I didn’t agree with, but I don’t know that they had a choice. Based on what the courts had been telling them, you have to be the bad guy, so step up and be the bad guy.”
Knowles believes that at the core of this issue is the long-standing belief that there’s never enough water – a mindset passed down from early settlers who relied on water for survival. “But that’s just not the truth,” he says.
Idaho is in a unique and fortunate position when it comes to water resources, compared to other Western states, Knowles says. Unlike the highly politicized Colorado River, which is subject to political disputes across multiple states, Idaho benefits from a more consistent and reliable water supply.
Based on hydrological data from the past 25 years, an average of 1.2 million acre-feet of unallocated water spills past Milner Dam annually. Stander adds, "If you average that over the 25 years, it’s well over 25 million-acre feet that could have – with proper foresight and proper infrastructure – gone into the aquifer. They say we’ve depleted the aquifer roughly 12 million-acre feet, so in the last 25 years, we’ve sent double what we’ve depleted over the last 50 years out of the aquifer. So yeah, there’s plenty of water.”
Courtesy photo.
Where do we go from here?
Young sees the curtailment as a catalyst for new ideas, forcing a reevaluation of what has been done and considering solutions previously overlooked. However, he warns that "If we don’t do something to fix this long term, we could find ourselves right back in the same place next year.”
To address these challenges, Young emphasizes that there are only two viable options: build and enhance aquifer recharge infrastructure or shut off acres. Young feels that his district is already highly efficient, noting their average water use is around 2 acre-feet per acre.
“One misconception that needs clarified is that we are just pumping unmeasured up here,” Young says. “The IDWR has required us to use flow meters since 2018. So to just say we have no idea what we are pumping is incorrect.”
Young is particularly optimistic about the idea of conjunctively using surface and groundwater resources within his district to resolve the water call. Proposed by Bingham Groundwater District Manager Alan Jackson, this approach involves temporarily drying up a few thousand acres of groundwater-irrigated farmland in Bingham County. The water rights from these lands would then be used to drill supplemental wells for canal users, which could be activated during late-season shortages. This would allow natural flow water to be directed to areas like the Twin Falls Canal Co., which often faces shortages during hot, dry periods. Achieving this through pumping reductions alone, in contrast, would require widespread, permanent dry-ups.
The plan also includes recharging the aquifer with excess surface water in wet years, ensuring that during dry years, the necessary water supply is available without shutting off large areas of farmland.
Discussions have also turned to the potential for new dam construction. Stander points to projects in other states, such as the Toquerville Reservoir in Utah, as examples. “If Utah can do it, why can’t we?” he asks, noting Idaho’s reluctance to support dam construction. "If we want to continue to grow and support economic growth in this state, we need to update our infrastructure and increase capacities."
Knowles acknowledges that updating Idaho's water infrastructure is no small task. Modern dam projects face significantly more regulatory and environmental hurdles than in the past. Even if a project began today, Knowles estimates it would take a decade at minimum to complete. “It's not that you couldn't construct a dam in three or four or five years, it's that you couldn't get through the red tape to get the permits to build the dam in three or four or five years,” he explains.
He cites a proposed 500 cubic feet per second (CFS) pipeline at Roberts from two years ago, designed to deliver water to Mud Lake in the Terreton area west of Rexburg. The project aimed to use excess surface water from the Snake River while shutting off wells along the way to support recharge and surface water systems. However, the $400 million price tag caused the Idaho Water Board and IDWR to lose interest.
Knowles stresses the need to assess the value of water saved during plentiful years through large infrastructure projects. He points out that while some users achieve excellent yields with 2 acre-feet per acre, others need 6 to 7 for similar results. "How can we meet in the middle?" he asks, challenging the notion that junior water right holders should sacrifice so senior holders can divert at historical rates. Instead, he advocates for improving surface water distribution to meet demand efficiently. Currently, the IDWR lacks statutory authority to evaluate water system efficiencies, but Knowles believes this should be required for water calls affecting junior groundwater rights.
Kody Youree, a grower south of Twin Falls, agrees that both surface and groundwater users can improve water efficiency. On his farm, he anticipates water shortages and adjusts by dedicating one-third to half of his acreage to grains. This strategy enables early grain harvest, allowing him to focus resources later in the year on more water-intensive crops, if needed. “I know it’s not as profitable, but I don’t burn crops up in the second half of summer because we’re short on water, either.”
Youree notes that the Twin Falls Canal Co. could improve efficiency by lining canals and reducing water waste, efforts which are already underway. His main concern, however, is if meters aren’t on every pump. “I don’t want to see anyone hurt, but our water is measured here, with locks on headgates. … To make it work, the first step is simple: knowing how much water is being drawn from the system, and that starts with installing meters."
Stander advocates for efficiency audits of water systems to ensure senior water users are using their water effectively and to safeguard all users across the state. A senior user at the end of the ditch might struggle to get water due to system inefficiencies during low-water years. Efficiency audits would protect these users and ensure everyone is using water according to priority. “That's something I would think everyone would support because that would benefit 99.999 percent of the water users in Idaho,” he says.
Stander also supports replacing the water director with a water committee with proper representation from stakeholders; and implementing a five-year pause on litigation, during which specific benchmarks must be met each year. This period would be used to develop infrastructure, redirecting funds typically spent on legal battles toward projects that benefit everyone, he says.
“It’s challenging, even for me, because you always have your own biases,” Stander concludes. “There is no us versus them. There’s only us as Idahoans, and we’ve got to protect all of us, not just one of us. And if we have one greedy player in this water game, everyone will fail. We all have to come to the table and figure this out, and we have to use some logic and leave our feelings aside and try to view this objectively.”
