“is Idaho curtailing water supply to thousands of acres of Idaho farmer land in order to direct more water to Aussie Cobalt mining operator, Jervois Mining?”
No junior water rights holders upstream are pumping more than the 2016 agreement allows and there is a 74,000 acre foot shortage to senior water rights holders down stream. Idaho is first in time first in use regardless of upstream or down. The farmers making a stink are the junior water right holders. Mining is not the issue over pumping and more so over planting is. As is typical of the West water rights were granted and based on abnormal wet years so the system is structurally broken. The Western States are largely deserts and should be treated as such you don’t grow grass that takes 60” per year of water to grow in a desert to feed cattle in Saudi Arabia for example looking at you Idaho and California. Alfalfa takes up too 60” of irrigation per year that’s 5 acrefeet per year per acre to grow. That crop should be illegal in desert climates. Potatoes are fairly efficient in water use and can be drip irrigated the junior holders should be required to drip irrigate once they are compliant move to the senior water rights also to drip irrigation. Drought crops should also be looked at like agave who can condense water from the air they do so at night via the CAM vs C3/4 process. This is how Agave is not only the most efficient land plant in biomass per acre but also the most water efficient plant. Agave can be obviously fermented into alcohol but its super high carbohydrate per mass is suitable for any animal feed more so than the cellulose of alfalfa which can only be used by rumens. Think chickens, pigs and sheep/cows vs cattle and sheep only. The yield per acre of agave is also five to ten times that of alfalfa problem is you can’t dry and ship it to Saudi Arabia it’s wet silage only. And it doesn’t make ADM and Monsanto billions plus it is labor intensive vs industrial combines however on th at front it wouldn’t be hard to engineer a mechanical agave harvester it’s just Latin America has literally dirt cheap labor.
Thanx for all the interesting information