Posted on 08/01/2005 3:03:15 PM PDT by hedgetrimmer
Forty years ago farmers and developers stood on a rolling bench along the Snake River between Buhl and Hagerman and envisioned productive farmland where sagebrush was growing. Today that farmland is headed back to grass and sagebrush.
In a landmark deal that took nearly a year to pull together, the state of Idaho purchased the water right granted to Bell Rapids Mutual Irrigation Co. in October 1963. It's the first time the state has purchased a water right from a willing seller since the Idaho Water Resource Board issued its "Invitation for Offers to Sell" earlier this year.
For John O'Connor, whose father filed a desert entry application in April 1967 to become one of the first landowners on the newly created Bell Rapids project, it's a bittersweet time. He remembers years when his fields yielded 40-ton-per-acre sugar beets, over 600 sacks-per-acre potatoes and 8-ton-per-acre alfalfa hay.
After the state signed a letter of intent to purchase the Bell Rapids water rights in March, O'Connor planted 520 acres of oats hoping to get enough germination that the oats would compete with the weeds and keep the soil from blowing until he could seed the entire farm to crested wheatgrass this fall. Instead, good spring rains meant he harvested 500 acres of oat hay at 1.25 tons-per-acre and 1.5 tons-per-acre first cutting alfalfa hay -- all without irrigating a drop and making this one of the most fun years O'Connor has had farming on the tract for several years.
Deep soil and a long growing season has blessed the Bell Rapids bench with excellent growing conditions. The only downfall was that all the irrigation water had to be lifted 620-feet from the nearby Snake River.
"We have 18 inches of soil here. You could put a v-ripper in the soil and not lift if for a mile until it was time to turn around at the end of the field," O'Connor said.
Increasing power costs coupled with low commodity prices took the fun out of farming land that wasn't plagued by rocks or fences. For many years, farmers on the tract paid 3.5 cents a kilowatt hour for the electricity to run their pivots and hand lines. Then power rates crept up to 4 cents.
"Once power got between four and five cents a kwh, farming got to be a lot less fun up here," O'Connor said.
Three years ago O'Connor spent between $150,000 and $200,000 to irrigate about 900 acres for the season.
"Power went up enough that it more than motivated us to take a look at this opportunity," he said.
On top of the cost of operating their sprinkler irrigation systems, land owners and operators also paid between $100 and $150 an acre to pressurize, operate and maintain the mutual irrigation company. Actual water costs were determined by their crop rotation and consumptive use.
For example, in 2003, the company figured an alfalfa crop consumed 2.9 acre-feet of water per acre compared to a miserly 1.42 acre-feet for a barley crop. Sugar beets were the largest water user in the rotation, taking 3.75 acre-feet of the 4 acre-feet per acre allowed under the company's water right.
Under the agreement with the state, land owners retain title to the land and can use it as they see fit. O'Connor is lucky that his family has domestic wells, and he is looking at renting the land for grazing once the crested wheat is established. Some may erect windmills to generate electricity on land that once required so much electricity to raise a crop.
"We will do our best to be responsible land stewards," O'Connor said of his fellow shareholders.
The total purchase price of the 100,000 acre-feet of water rights is $24,375,000, which works out to about $225 per acre-foot. Shareholders received 65 percent of the total purchase price in the first payment made in July. Payments will be made each June for the next five years.
The 2005 Legislature appropriated general funds for the purchase, but those funds will mostly be repaid through a lease agreement with the federal Bureau of Reclamation. The Bureau will now lease most of the water from the Idaho Water Resource Board to augment river flows for salmon and steelhead recovery required under the Endangered Species Act. Lease payments will be used to payback most of the purchase cost.
End of an ere
In announcing the purchase late last month, House Speaker Bruce Newcomb called the deal a win-win for all citizens of Idaho.
"State taxpayers benefit because the federal government is contributing to the purchase of this water that will be used to meet federal policy objectives. Irrigators will benefit because this purchase helps to reduce the demand for water from the upper Snake River in drought years. The environment will benefit because of additional flows through the mid-Snake River," Newcomb said. "Finally, the impact on the local economy is reduced because the shareholders will be able to reinvest in their lands and local economy."
O'Connor finds it ironic that Speaker Newcomb was instrumental in putting the deal together that ended irrigation on the Bell Rapids tract when it was Newcomb's uncle, G.T. "Bud" Newcomb that helped create the project.
Bud Newcomb was an engineer who had developed other irrigation projects, and O'Connor's father was an executive for Idaho Power.
"Bell Rapids was created because of the teamwork of Bud Newcomb and my dad," O'Connor said.
And while he is proud of his family's involvement on the project; he is also at peace with the decision to quit irrigating the nearly 20,000 acres of farmland on the tract.
He remembers 1971, the first year his family's land was in production. The entire 900 acres was planted to potatoes even though the irrigation systems were still being installed as the planters were in the fields. Timely spring rains saved the crop until the irrigation systems were completed.
And timely spring rains have allowed the O'Connors to harvest one last crop. In addition to the oat and alfalfa hay he cut, he expects to harvest about 100 acres of volunteer wheat, and that's after sheep grazed the plants for a month this spring.
"We haven't had much spring rain in the years between the first one and this one, but we got spring rains when we needed them," O'Connor said. "It feels like this was meant to be, it feels like it was meant to end. I feel honored to have been part of this from beginning to end."
READER BOX
* Water right granted to Bell Rapids Mutual Irrigation Co. for 5,728 cfs in Oct. 1963
* Original project encompassed 26,000 acres; approximately 19,000 acres were in production at time of water right sale.
* The name, Bell Rapids Mutual Irrigation Co., reflects the company's non-profit status.
* Supplying the water required 120 miles of mainline pipe, 620-feet of high lift and 20 megawatts of power demand at the pumps.
* At peak production, there were 97 pivots on the tract.
* It took two to three years to install the infrastructure to irrigate the Bell Rapids tract and shareholders estimate it will take about the same amount of time to dismantle the infrastructure.
* Water right was purchased by the Idaho Water Resource Board in June 2005.
If only they'd planted corn and turned it into ethanol.
The land grows sugar beets very well. But with no water and costly electricity to pump it, the farmer and the American public are losers. Federal government policies are putting all the wealth producers out of business in this country.
At some point in the early 1990s the economists started telling us we were going to be a nation that produced services. That means, we are all servants in the end, and not free, independent people able to generate wealth from our private property.
If people need government subsidies to generate wealth from their "private" property, they are effectively vassals of the government.
It is unbelievable the amount of people who think the federal government is a money making machine instead of a money taking machine. Where do these people think the feds got the money to buy this water? They should check their wallets because they a sight bit lighter.
Where does the article say that the irrigation district was subsidized by the government? It says the farmers owned the water rights and they sold them because basically they were forced to do it. The federal government BLM is all about putting the "rights" of animals before the rights of citizens of this country and wanted to buy it " for the salmon......"
Why do you want the federal government to take over water resources in Idaho?
Are you a globalist who hates to see private Americans owning water rights?
Again, another person opposed to private citizens owning water rights? I don't get it. Why do you all want the federal government to own everything?
Do I have the math right?
100,000 Ac-Ft / 4 AF/yr= 25,000 acres
$937-$1283 per acre (19000-26000 acres) and they still own the underlying fee land sans water.
How many farm related jobs and rural service jobs just went up in "dust" in this transaction. The local town will wonder what hit'm.
You don't own the land if the government owns the water.
The idea that property rights can be "unbundled" has been very dangerous to our Constitution, and the Constitution doesn't support this idea at all.
By separating the water rights from the land you render it basically worthless.
If you haven't been paying attention, you'll see that there is a concerted effort across the country involving state and federal governments getting the water rights to land out of private hands.
The country we are creating for our progeny will depend on the largess of the government once they own the rights to our water. The federal government is not benign and is not authrized by the Constitution to own vast tracts of land and water, but because the American people are not stopping them, they are accruing the resources at a startling rate. These water and land grabs are moving us closer and closer to a socialist system.
You know these growers got free land, subsidized electricity, and most likely below-market farm operating loans.... how many times do they need to be bailed out?
If there is a Farmer ... there is a subsidy.
How about from looking at the trillions spent yearly in farm subsidies?
The article is about property rights. America loses when the federal government takes property away from its citzens. Don't you get that?
... and the government paying farmers not to farm isn't?
So they can't suck out of the river anymore. It doesn't say they can't drill a well .
Oh yeah, they were willing sellers who approached the government, too.
Most of these farmers when they purchased the land also purchased the right to use water from the river. Land is no good if there is no water for it.
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