Jon Marvel: Idaho should start charging for its most precious resource

Gov. Butch Otter's recent decisions ordering budget reductions for all state agencies provide an opportunity for the Idaho Legislature to consider better ways to reduce the economic downturn's impact on fundamental government services like public education by enabling new sources of revenues paid for by resource users.

One possible area for this kind of fiscal reform is in the administration of Idaho's most precious natural resource - water.

Under current Idaho law, water-right holders do not pay the state of Idaho anything for that right, even though the Idaho Supreme Court has affirmed that the state owns the surface and ground water within its boundaries. Every Idaho state water right establishes a point of diversion, a point of use, a season of use and the amount of water for that right, but the state charges nothing for the water.

Of course, there are costs for water users: farmers often pay canal and irrigation companies per share or per acre-foot of water and then may have additional costs for electricity for deep well pumps or pumping to pressurize surface water for sprinkling. City dwellers usually pay city water departments or private water companies per thousand gallons used per month, but except for these costs to convey or purify it, water is free for the taking.

This represents a loss to the citizens of Idaho who receive no compensation at all for the use of one of the state's most valuable assets.

One consequence of this free water policy is that the majority of the Idaho Department of Water Resources annual budget of $26 million comes from the Idaho's general fund, even though most of the work of the agency has to do with administering water rights and studying the relationship of groundwater and surface water.

In addition to this annual drain on the public pocketbook, water use conflicts are a growing cost for Idaho citizens. For example, the Idaho Water Resource Board is now considering a policy proposal with potential expenditures of as much as $600 million over 20 years to try to address water supply problems in the Eastern Snake River Plain Aquifer. If adopted by the Legislature, the cost to taxpayers will start at about $10 million per year and increase until Idaho taxpayers have shelled out over $350 million. This additional burden on Idaho's declining state revenues could start as soon as next year.

Instead of this drain on public coffers and the sales tax revenues that could be supporting public education, why doesn't the state start charging all water users for the use of public water?

We know that farmers and ranchers in central Idaho are already being paid by the federal government from $5 to $20 per acre-foot of water every year in order to improve instream flows for salmon, steelhead and bull trout.

We also know that the total diversion of water in Idaho for all uses is about 20 million acre-feet per year. If the state charges users a reasonable but increasing rate per volume of water diverted, a minimum of $100 million per year and perhaps much more could be raised to fund the Idaho Department of Water Resources and provide additional funding for needed programs like public education and road and bridge infrastructure that are currently being cut back.

Such a charge could also encourage conservation by establishing a rising fee as the amount of use increased. In this way large users like irrigators would become accountable for their impacts that contribute to currently declining surface and groundwater flows in the Snake River Plain.

Hard times can lead to innovative ways to sustain important public programs like education. The earlier we start to discuss new ways of funding critical public needs, the sooner we can help insure our children's future.

Jon Marvel, of Hailey, is the executive director of Western Watersheds Project.