WORDS BY MICHELLE STENNETT

PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

When the rivers run low in Idaho, who gets the water first? According to Idaho water law, the city of Hailey comes before the farmer in Gooding. And waiting in line is the homeowner in Ketchum turning on the tap.

Cities who assume they have complete control over their water are misinformed. The answer isn’t a matter of politics or preference. It’s a matter of history.

The Big Wood River is so low that some adults and children have been walking out to the gravel bars in the middle of the river.

Idaho lives by the doctrine of “first in time, first in right” (Idaho Water Law Title 43, Chapter 6). If your water right was established in 1880, you stand ahead of someone whose right was filed in 1960.

That’s true whether you are irrigating alfalfa, running a factory, or providing drinking water to a town. The state’s watermasters don’t choose based on who needs it most; they choose based on who got there first.

This may sound harsh, but it’s how Idaho law has balanced growth and scarcity for over a century. Hailey, for example, holds a spring right from 1880, giving it one of the most senior municipal claims in the Wood River Valley.

Ketchum doesn’t and cannot sustain unplanned growth. In a dry year, that puts entire communities at risk of curtailment while older farm and canal rights are still honored. In the Idaho Constitution, the date stamped on the water right decides whose fields are irrigated and whose towns go brown.

Idaho water law was designed for 19th-century needs, not 21-century growth and competing demands. Towns must take water conservation seriously.

Hailey’s water, as an example, is metered, system leakages are being fixed and water rates are tiered (excessive use costs users more). The town also has included water conservation measures in its comprehensive plan. Our other towns should also be very proactive.

As the weather gets hotter, rainfall diminishes, and snowpacks shrink, the cracks in the system will widen.

Cutting off a city’s water while agricultural fields stay green is enshrined in water law. The courts and the Idaho Department of Water Resources (IDWR) already referee fierce disputes between senior surface water users and junior groundwater pumpers. Each drought year, more towns are forced into expensive lawsuits, mitigation plans or temporary leases from senior users to keep taps flowing.

In fairness, IDWR will try to give priority to “culinary and stock water,” water for people and animals, in a water crisis. However, that does not include city/municipal uses outside of tap water, homeowner associations, domestic use if a second home, city irrigation or business uses.

Remarkably, Idaho is the only state to have adjudicated over 80% of its water. It has aquifer recharge programs, a water bank and has conjunctive management and groundwater management agreements.

Smartly, Blaine County is part of a mitigated groundwater management plan agreement in a very complicated water basin, which aids in sharing responsibility for all users in our watershed.

This conversation can’t wait for the next crisis. In Idaho, history decides who drinks first. But the future will depend on whether we are willing to rethink our thirsty demands.