Shari’s Gone Country

This post is a personal opinion by a resident of Escalante Valley. It is also posted in conjuction with Bloggers’ Unite, and effort to bring world-wide attention to abuse of all kinds.

I’ve done a little research on this issue of suddenly needing to restrict the use of water in Escalante Valley, Utah.

In the state of Utah, water is public property, and to use it personally, you must purchase “water rights”. Typically, they are sold by the acre-foot (325.8 thousand gallons). You purchase that right for a lifetime, to use annually.

Over the years, the State Water Engineer has established water usage “duties” as well as the formulas determining how much water it takes to do certain activities, like irrigation. The duty for irrigation water in this valley is four acre-feet of water per acre of crop, no matter the crop, or the irrigation method.

In our valley, the most prevalent crop is alfalfa. Corn and potatoes comprise less than 20% of total crop production. Also, of all the water used, less than 10% of the water rights are dedicated to domestic or culinary use.

The State Water Engineer has been tasked with the requirement to establish Ground Water Management Plans for various regions in Utah. The Beryl-Escalante Aquifer has been singled out as an example of “water mining”. That is the unique situation where far more water appears to be removed annually that is re-charged by natural runoff.

Here’s what I find interesting.

Water users, including the large irrigation users do not meter their water. Home users don’t meter their water. So just exactly how do you really know how much is being used?

The State Water Engineer bases his figures on how many “water rights” have been sold and recorded with the state. It shows there are approximately 83,000 acre-feet of water rights issued in the Beryl-Escalante Valley Basin.

Best “guesstimates” are an annual re-charge rate of some 33,000 acre feet.

Unfortunately, there is no credit for conservation of water. The State Water Engineer’s office makes no distinction for the difference of using a “corn gun” vs using drip irrigation, or even calculation the savings generated by simply lowering the sprinkler heads on the large pivot wheels.

Their water usage tables are way out of whack when it comes to how much water is used for watering farm animals. We water three horses, nine sheep, and just under two dozen chickens. We control the water we use by always putting the water into measured containers.

Our horses rarely drink more than 15 gallons per horse per day, and yet the calculations say we are using 75 gallons per day.

Our entire herd of sheep rarely drink more than 20 gallons per day and yet, the State Water Engineer declares the sheep drink 45 gallons per day.

Our chickens rarely collectively consume more than 4 gallons of water per day, and yet the forumlas say our chickens consume nearly 18 gallons per day.

So, if we use about half or so of what we’re allowed, what happens when that figure is multiplied across the valley population?

The large water users have formed a group called the Escalante Valley Water Users Association. They have come up with a plan that is unprecedented in Utah history. In addition to actively working to conserve water usage, they are willing to participate 50/50 with the state to repurchase and retire up to 20% of the existing water rights.

That is a much more palatable solution than the one proposed by the State Water Engineer. His solution is to cut off water rights for anyone who’s rights are dated more recently than 1941. That solution would take away virtually all the domestic water rights. With no domestic rights, homes become unfit for occupancy and millions of dollars worth of property become worthless overnight.

The State Water Engineer has been routinely rejecting any plan offered by the Escalante Valley Water Users Association. I personally believe that after the meeting this last Monday night, at which almost all the local legislators pledged their whole-hearted support… things may change.

If in fact, the State Water Engineer is being short-sighted and heavy-handed to the point of abusing the valley… things could get very exciting.

We (along with about 300 other local residents) attended a meeting presented by the Escalante Water Users Board. This is a group of large agricultural users who have been diligently working on a plan to stimulate water conservation and also to assist the state by developing a plan to re-purchase and retire “water rights”

Seems that the largest issue surrounding the plan offered by the Water Users is that the Utah State Engineer, who is personally and solely in charge of administering Ground Water Management Plans, feels the plan is “woefully short” of goals set forth by the State Legislature.

Basically, the state passed a Ground Water Management Law that says “The State Engineer may establish Ground Water Management Plans where necessary for conservation to reach a “safe usage level”… and that he shall consider any and all economic impact to the local water users.

The Escalante Desert Valley sits atop an aquifer who’s size has yet to be fully determined. We know that in the 1950’s average well water levels were around 46 feet. Today, the average well level (as determined by 11 monitored wells out of thousands) the water level is closer to 90 feet.

Since most wells are drilled to about 200 feet, no one really knows for sure how deep the aquifer really runs. No one knows for sure how long it takes for the mountain snow to re-charge this underground lake either.

Now the State Engineer would love to exercise the “easy solution” quite soon. That would be to come to “safe usage” within a matter of a few years. After all, he could say this is what he was directed to do, and he did it.

Utah law provides that water rights and the restrictions of their usage is based on “first priority” by date. For all practical purposes, to return to “safe usage” in the near future, anyone who owned water rights dated any more recently than the end of 1941 would lose the right to use water… even if it meant they’d have no domestic (culinary) water right.

That means a person’s home would become immediately unfit for occupancy, and financially worthless. That would affect hundreds of homeowners throughout the valley.

For further information on this “abuse” of power by the State Engineer, check the latest article, written by Mitch Cole a resident of Beryl Junction and member of The Spectrum and Daily News Writers Group.

Living here in the Escalante Desert Valley, we’re always concerned about water, and “water rights”. For the record, we officially have 1 acre-foot of water for our use. That means we can use up to 325851.428571 gallons of water per year.

When I do the math, it figures out this way. Each day we can use up to 892.745 gallons of water. For the four of us and all our animals… that seems like a lot of water.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re not the least bit interested in giving up any of our water rights. In fact, we’d like to purchase one additional acre-foot, but at a minimum asking price of over $5,000, it’s not likely to happen in the near future.

Now, I’ve done a little investigating (anyone can do this with access to the right links), and personally believe someone needs to really think through the formulas.

For example here are the basic allowances for different kinds of livestock.

cow or horse 0.028 acre-foot
sheep, goat, swine, moose, or elk 0.0056 acre-foot
ostrich or emu 0.0036 acre-foot
llama 0.0022 acre-foot
deer, antelope, bighorn sheep, or mt. goat 0.0014 acre-foot
chicken, turkey, chukar, sagehen, or pheasant 0.00084 acre-foot
mink or fox (caged) 0.00005 acre-foot

When I calculate this on a daily basis, it tells me that our horses are expected to consume an average of 25 gallons per day, per horse. Our sheep are expected to consume just shy of 5 gallons per day per sheep. Our chickens are exptected to consume 3 quarts per chicken per day.

Folks, that’s a lot of water per animal, and since we control our water through the use of measured containers, these figures are excessive.

For domestic use, we’re allowed a full 100 gallons per person as there are four of us in the family and we get 401 gallons per day. Again, the allowance is very generous.

Now, here’s the problem.

The State of Utah believes the water table in this valley is being depleted by overuse, and they are setting about changing how things are done… and that includes the distinct possibility that “water rights” which have been purchased could be disallowed. And that would be done without compensation.

We’re going to a valley-wide meeting tonight where we will learn a whole lot more about what’s happening. There are some huge farmers in this valley who have the rights to 1000’s of acre-feet of water who are most unhappy. They’ve formed a “Conservation District” and are laying plans to fight any action by the state.

This could get interesting. I’ll be blogging more about this over the next two days leading up to a world wide “blog-a-thon” sponsored by Bloggers Unitie, entitled “Stop the Abuse”.