Is State Funding for CAMP in Jeopardy?

Both Senate and House committees dealing with natural resources committees met this week.

At the Senate Resources and Environment committee meeting, Director Hal Anderson of the Idaho Department of Water Resources and his board were on hand to follow up on an interim committee request to review how budget cutbacks were going to affect the department – specifically progress on the Eastern Snake River Plain Comprehensive Aquifer Management Plan or CAMP.

Anderson noted that the department is leaving some staff positions vacant and laying off other staff, leaving them with a skeleton crew, and a longer wait for processing water rights requests. Also of concern is financing for irrigation system improvements. Stimulus funds can provide a 50% funding, but the credit market is so tight right now, so applicants are finding that financing the remainder is difficult.

Senator Coiner noted his concern with the way department procedures are written and the resulting potential injury to junior water rights holders. He noted that throughout the tenure of multiple department directors he has asked for a review of these procedures, specifically with regard to the water bank: a system which works well, except in the case of private leases, says Senator Coiner.

“I think that the person who leases the water bears the brunt of the lack of water (as opposed to the entity that holds the water right) until the water bank fills.” He said.

Senator Bracket raised the specter of State funding for the CAMP. How important, in the face of the current budget crisis, is it that the State follows through on its $1 million funding for CAMP this year?

Anderson noted that other funding mechanisms are being explored, but that “the discussions we’ve had with the water users and the State’s commitment to this funding go hand-in-hand …. Without state funding these discussions would fall apart.”

Anderson added further that the CAMP funding provides a necessary bridge to carry the project forward to a time when fees and other funding sources can be realized.

Chairman Schroeder brought up the subject of incidental recharge of the aquifer. The IDWR board wants to encourage the healthy consumption of water that includes incidental recharge. There is the question, however, of incentivizing incidental recharge. Should someone who is already allowing for incidental recharge be compensated, or just those who must transition to a system of surface water?

Members of the board acknowledged they don’t have a solution to this problem, but are confident one will be presented.