Idaho Farmers: “We’re All Going to Fail”

Idaho farmers are in danger of having their water shut off. The water shutoff order affects half a million acres of farmland and about 6,400 people who use the water. Without water, their farmland is worthless.

The state of Idaho has put a water curtailment order, which is basically a water shutoff order on literally a half million acres of farmland. ‌ Many farming this land have already invested in thousands of acres, thousands of dollars per acre, to grow potatoes. It’s too late for them to survive without water.

Essentially, this curtailment represents a battle of wills between the Idaho Department of Water Resources and the groundwater districts in eastern Idaho.

Idaho’s waterways are owned by the State as a public trust resource. A water right is the right to divert the state’s public waters and put them to beneficial use. A water right is a “usufructuary right,” meaning a right to use, as opposed to a right to possess.

There isn’t enough water to go around, so senior water users say they want the junior water users (farmers) cut off because they haven’t stuck with the plan. Junior water users are in desperate straits, but senior water users have primary legal rights.

If the officials don’t come up with a solution almost immediately, the crops will die.

Farmer Connie Christenson told Local News 8 that unless there is an emergency end to the curtailment order, the water cut-off won’t just mean the end to their potato crop but potentially six generations of farming.

“We wouldn’t be able to take that kind of a hit and continue,” said Christensen. “I mean, maybe you can get a bank to carry you, but it would be crazy for the banks to carry us when we don’t know if we’re ever going to be able to irrigate again.”

Farmer Trevor Belknap explains at the beginning of the video. “I operate a family farm, a fifth-generation family farm in the Snake River Valley of eastern Idaho. I just wanted to visit with you for a minute about the impacts of the water curtailment order that’s been issued by Director Weaver from the Outer Department of Water Resources. ‌

“The situation in which we find ourselves is about as bad as it gets. Not only will we be out of business, but many other businesses will be highly impacted, and you, as my friends and neighbors, will also be impacted because we’re so interconnected.

“If the agriculture economy in eastern Idaho fails, which it surely will if this containment order is in place, it can remain in place; we’ll dry up and blow away just like it did back in the dust bowl of the 30s.

“Banks will fail. Equipment dealers, car dealers, gas stations, and grocery stores all rely on the ag economy that’s here in eastern Idaho.

“The children in our schools, how many of them belong to families who work in some form of ag industry in eastern Idaho? It’s horrible. And we need to fix it. “And I would propose to you that it is not a water problem; it’s a management problem because we have water. Reservoirs are full. The mountains are covered in snow. The river’s been flowing well. ‌ So why now?

“Why, after we’ve planted our crops, we have crops in the ground that are already growing? Now, in the middle of June, they pull a curtailment order to say you must cease pumping water.

“The cost is huge. An acre of potatoes costs upward of $4,000 an acre to grow. “How will that ever be recovered? They will not grow without water. And what will that do to everyone else that’s reliant upon us in this area and the state of Idaho? “What will the counties do for roads and bridges, police departments, ambulances, hospitals that rely on tax the tax base. Property like this will become worthless. Without water, the land doesn’t have any value here.”

Just wait until they drain The Great Lakes. That would be the quickest way to starve out the entire population of the USA. Canada, too.

Luckily, people were smart enough to devise The Great Lakes Compact - but that doesn’t mean that Socialists will stop trying to drain them! Surprised that CA and the Desert Southwest haven’t been building vast pipelines to do so!

https://greatlakes.org/campaigns/defending-the-great-lakes-compact/

We have the same problem in my medium-sized California city - we have been under strict water restrictions for years now due to a never-ending, “ongoing drought” - the the point where we have “water vans” going around looking to see if people are watering their yards when they’re not supposed to be. We’ve been under enormous pressure to “conserve” water - tear out our lawns, get rid of bathtubs, get rid of our swimming pools, not wash our cars. Our aged electric grid is also under enormous strain and is often at capacity, especially during heat waves - I get notices from my city during the day not to run large appliances or plug in EVs.

Yet, we are also under state mandate to built tens of thousands of new apartments in each city - these monster buildings are going up on the edges of my town - guess they don’t need water or electricty...

I left San Diego in 2000 for Pocatello, ID. The water problems were an issue even in the late 70s when I purchased my first condo. The HOA was looking for ways to reduce exterior watering of common areas. All of the effort made by residents is immediately undermined by the relentless illegal immigration adding more demands on water, electricity, schools and hospitals.

The latest local kerfluffle comes from a Utah real estate development company that wants to build 80 "town homes" on a plot of land adjacent to Ammon Park. The developer is very clear that these will never be sold. Rentals only. Pocatello city council is dominated by Democrats with questionable morals and financial motives. I don't expect the wailing from the citizens will have any effect on that development going forward.

You can’t drain the Great Lakes the outlet river beds are shallower in depth by hundreds of feet vs the deep center water bodies. Those are glacial lakes where the water is melt water from the miles thick ice that used to be filling those holes. The rivers between them are modern overflow features made by natural overflow on the last 12,000 years. In theory you could sink submersible pumps into the deeps and pump water out but even ten meter diameter pipes about the largest that can be made would only flow 6 million acrefeet per year and you would need a half dozen nuclear reactors running 24/7/365 at max output to pump the water up hill out of the glacial basins. So no it’s not possible to drain the lakes sleep well. You could at most take the top 100 feet then you have to pump against gravity the other 1800+ feet of water depth. The flow of the saint Laurence River is outflow and overflow from the lakes think about the size and volume of that flow that’s how much surplus water those lakes get every year via rainfall and snowmelt in the HUGE capture area of the Great Lakes region.

You could take 10 million acrefeet per year and send it down the Chicago River to the Mississippi River system and not make a dent in the st Laurence River outflows most years. Capture that extra flow at Cairo Ohio and send it via two ten meter wide pipes up hill to Denver 860 miles away and 5200 feet up hill. You need six 1000 megawatt reactors to move that much water uphill. It would cost 400 billion and solve the water crisis in the southwest forever. Denver already has tunnels through the continental divide reverse the flow and the water hits the Colorado basin and flows downhill via gravity all the way to Mexico. Yes I am a hydro geologist and have done the math and used ARCGIS to model this very project for the USGS. For less than what we are giving to the corrupt Ukes we could double the average flow of the Colorado River forever.

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