This is just one post in the Southwest Water Issues Category

A quest for water: Whose water is it? Utah rancher tests the system by leasing unused water allocation

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 1, 2008 at 6:28 am

From the Salt Lake Tribune:

In Tim Vetere’s dreams, the Fremont River water flows upstream to grow melons, hay and cattle on a ranch that stretches across thousands of acres of good farmland in east central Utah’s section of the Colorado River Basin. His wish seems to have come true, at least on paper. State Engineer Jerry Olds, seeing Wayne County perilously close to the deadline for putting its 50,000 acre-feet per year of Colorado River to use, last year approved Vetere’s request for one of the largest water-right transfers in recent state history.

The rancher’s quest for water comes at a time when water needs increasingly are clashing with reality: The state has doled out 180,000 rights to tap rivers and dig wells, but there’s just not enough water to honor them all.

Vetere now can draw on the Green River - about 60 miles upstream from where the right exists - for Wayne County’s Fremont River allocation and may irrigate more than 16,000 acres across three counties. And Olds, willing to get creative to solve some of Utah’s most vexing water problems, reckons the rancher’s plan might set an example for how Utah can keep its share of Colorado River water at a time when big downstream states are facing shortages.

The Colorado River Basin has been closed to new large allocations in the decade Vetere has been trying to secure his own water rights. That’s why Olds pointed Vetere to Utah rural water agencies that have yet to “prove up” their Colorado River water rights by putting them to beneficial use. Maybe, he told Vetere, someone would sell some rights or work out some other deal.

Vetere approached Wayne County, where water managers agreed to allow the third-generation rancher to lease its right to the Fremont River. In turn, said Bliss Brinkerhoff, a member of the county water conservancy district board, Vetere will get to keep 15,000 to 20,000 acre-feet for his own if he can show he is putting the water to good use.

Olds made sure the state would get something out of it, too - new understanding of never-tapped resources, which under the law belong to all Utahns. “As state engineer, I want to see Utah use this water,” Olds said. “What we’re doing is giving [Vetere] a hunting permit to go see if there are in fact elephants down there, and if there are, he can shoot one.”

But if or when Wayne County tries to get the water back, as Brinkerhoff says may happen, it will depend on whether the water managers can show they need it. If they can’t, “then there’s an issue,” Olds said.

Read more on this extensive article from the Salt Lake Tribune by clicking here.

June 1, 2008 · Filed Under Southwest Water Issues, Water Rights