11/27/07 Water hearing about to get underway

Beginning tomorrow former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerald Schroeder will listen to the arguments and evidence from the ground water pumpers and senior users. He'll have to decide if pumpers owe water to senior users in the Thousand Springs area and if so, how much. Ground water appropriators' Lynn Tominaga says between 15 hundred and two thousand pages of information have already been presented in advance of the two week long hearing in Boise. TOMINAGA "That information entered in and then cross examination and rebuttals of all of the different experts that are coming, being involved." Tominaga says the Thousand Springs case is plowing new ground so to speak. TOMINAGA "There has not been any kind of case law or court hearings that deal with the conjunctive management. So any of the decisions that come out from this will basically set legal precedents for future conjunctive management issues." He fully expects that any decisions made by Judge Schroeder will be appealed and the case will eventually go to the Idaho Supreme Court. Irrigated agriculture isn't the only industry affected by this case; cities, commercial users, industry and just about everyone from Wendell-Gooding to Ashton could be impacted. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott