Trevor Belknap is an eastern Idaho farmer with a draconian view of what will happen as a result of the water curtailment order. I operate a fifth generation family farm in the snake River Valley of eastern Idaho, and 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 Idaho 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, 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 ag economy in eastern Idaho fails, which it surely will. If this containment order remains 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, 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 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. Speaker1: It's sad, but he's right.
