Idaho State Water Director Issues Warning For Grondwater Irrigators If Snowfall Falters

[hatrack]

The state's top water official is sending an early message to thousands of southern Idaho groundwater users that their pumps may be shut down next summer if the state logs another winter of low mountain snowpack.

David Tuthill, director of Idaho's Department of Water Resources, said letters will be mailed later this week to more than 2,700 farmers, ranchers, cities, schools and other businesses spread across a broad swath of southern Idaho that draws water from the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer.

The letters provide advance warning that, barring a wet spring and an above-average snowpack in Idaho's mountain ranges, cutting off water supplies to some of those users may be the only option heading into the 2008 growing season.

"If the projected runoff is inadequate, then curtailments likely will be necessary," Tuthill wrote in an op-ed piece sent to newspapers across the state this week. The warning comes just months after the state nearly enforced a shutdown of hundreds of groundwater pumps in south-central Idaho. The prospect having their water turned off irked growers, municipalities, dairymen and other businesses reliant on the resource.

EDIT

http://www.idahostatesman.com/531/story/186745.html

[Trillo]

1. Lots of potatoes grown there!

Or so I've heard. Maybe we can adapt to eating brush, sticks, and grass, instead. $$$