07/06/07 Water curtailment averted

Lynn Tominaga credits growers in the upper Snake River Valley with providing the recharge water that helped to avert a water curtailment. Tominaga listened intently yesterday as Idaho Water Resources Director Dave Tuthill said the mitigation plans from the Idaho Ground Water Appropriators and the Idaho Dairy Association were acceptable. TUTHILL "The water that is being provided at the end of this irrigation season will be placed as close to the two calling entities Blue Lakes Trout Company and Snake River Farm as is feasible." IGWA will provide 20 thousand acre feet of recharge water while the dairymen have committed another 95 hundred acre feet of water. With no curtailment this year Tuthill says the next order of business is a hearing. TUTHILL "The date that has been scheduled is October ten. That is later than the date that had been sought by the Ground Water Appropriators but it does provide opportunity for discovery and pre-filed testimony." Without mitigation Tuthill was preparing to curtail 591 junior water rights covering more than 16 thousand 600 acres. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott