Chairman Doolittle and Members of the Committee,

My name is Steve Campbell. I live 130 miles north of where we are today in Meadows Valley. My great grandfather and two of his brothers homesteaded three ranches in that valley 115 years ago. Members of our families have made their living with cattle through grass production since that time. Our grass is known throughout the western livestock industry as one of a handful of premier areas for summer grass for cattle.

What we do has never been easy or a get rich quick scheme. The early beneficial use filings on stream water in this century and the construction of water storage reservoirs has allowed us to continue with our niche in the cattle rearing cycle. Without dependable irrigation water it will be impossible for us to continue pasturing cattle. I am not aware of any other economically viable use of agricultural land in Meadows Valley. Without irrigation water our century old ranches will no longer exist.

Until the recent past, our uncertainty about water was what will Mother Nature provide next year? Lately, it seems that the rules are changing. In 1978 we were all required to file and pay a fee on our water rights. Then in 1988 we had to go to Boise to file and pay again. Now we have had to join together to hire legal counsel to defend ourselves against the Federal and Indian instream flow claims.

Approximately ninety percent of the water users in our area have joined our group. That level of participation from a group of people who are typically of the most independent sort is highly unusual. I feel safe in saying this participation is because we feel "our" Federal Government is threatening our way of life and our very economic being.

One of the water users who chose not to join told me why. He moved here from central California where he had agricultural land. Threatened with a similar situation they hired legal counsel and spent a lot of money, only to lose most of their water. He said "If you are fighting the Indians over water, you have already lost and I am not going to throw anymore good money after bad."

After we personally pay for our own legal counsel to protect our water rights, we see our tax dollars being used by Federal

institutions to file against our water rights as they have exempted themselves from paying their filing fees. It is also very frustrating that the Federal and Indian claims were done in such a manner to make it very cumbersome and expensive for us to object. In many instances, several Federal groups would file for the same instream flows in the exact same river reach. This forced us to file many objections per river reach rather than one objection per river reach. This tactic forced our small drainage to file almost 200 objections per person to protect our water rights. The magnitude of the effort to object to Federal claims simply overwhelmed many and forced others to seek expensive legal assistance.

According the Idaho water law, as beneficial use claimants, we have to pay our fees, must wait for a field inspection to show that the place of use and quantities claimed are accurate, and show almost continuous use of said water. The Federal and Indian instream claims go by a different set of rules. If no one objects to their claims they are granted. They have exempted themselves from the filing fees. Obviously they don't have to show continuous use. When was the last time the Indian or Federal groups requested their "claimed" 130,000 cubic feet per second to flow past Lewiston?

I just heard Tuesday that the Forest Service withdrew 98 percent ( all but 70 ) of their claims. This is good news. What would it have saved the water users in the state if they had not filed these frivolous claims in the first place? If Colorado sets any precedent, we will get to go through all of this again. Are there any rules as to how Government agencies have to behave?

I was taught that "controlling your water" when you irrigate makes the major difference in the ranches in our area. If others "controlled our water" it would absolutely make a difference in our ranches. The Federal government has been looking for any means to increase their control over our private property and our lives. The Endangered Species Act, wetlands regulations and the Clean Water Act have been very effective for them. These acts are used to jerk us around and to take measures that have no measurable impact on the environment or the species of concern but real impacts on us.

We need Congress to demand accountability of the Federal agencies. Specifically in the case of the Federal threat to our water rights we need to have the involved agencies define the social and economic impact of their proposed action. They need to have public

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participation, particularly with the effected people to hear what they are doing to us and to tell us why they are doing it. We need to know why the Forest Service still has 70 water right claims. Why has the Fish and Wildlife Service filed for instream flows? Why can the Federal groups file for water rights without preparing Environmental Impact Statements? We need the Federal agencies to quit trying to steal water from the irrigators in a clandestine manner. Federal water right claims should require the same standard of beneficial use as individual claims. It appears that we do not have the skill nor the time necessary to protect ourselves from our own Government.

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Testimony of Wendy L. Wilson

Executive Director, Idaho Rivers United

before the Water and Power Resources Subcommittee of the House Committee on Resources, concerning

Federal Actions Affecting Idahoans' Water Rights

Boise, Idaho, October 5, 1995

Thanks you for this opportunity to address the subcommittee today. name is Wendy L. Wilson, I live at 3920 Twilight Court, Boise, Idaho, 83703.

My

Idaho Rivers United is a not-for-profit citizens' organization representing the interests of people who use and enjoy Idaho's fisheries and waterways. We are an independent citizen watchdog organization with over 1,400 members. We are run by a volunteer board of directors composed entirely of Idahoans, most of who are Idaho-born. We are not affiliated with any other organizations.

In Idaho, before the turn of the century, irrigators could divert the entire Snake River, over 16,000 cubic feet per second. Dams were then built by private efforts to help the newer wave of immigrants get water from rivers that were being dried up every year by the first wave of immigrants. After 1906 and the Reclamation Act the federal government came into the dam building business as the biggest cash cow any frontier farm boy had ever seen. The costs of the Boise Project of the Bureau of Reclamation, after the full amoratization period, will be paid for primarily by U.S. taxpayers and BPA ratepayers. A full 90% of the real costs of the project (including carrying costs of the capital subsidy and irrigator "inability to pay" calculations) will not be paid for by irrigators, even though all but 15% of the space in the reservoirs is allocated to irrigation.

Today Idaho's water rights system is a stacked deck against the rights of fish and wildlife to even exist. The first-in-time first-in-right principle, if honestly applied, would make water rights for fish senior to all irrigation and hydropower water rights. Those pesky fish didn't fill out the forms on the day of statehood, so they lost out.

In fact Idaho water laws allow fisheries water rights only in extremely limited situations, ones where there are no conflicts with irrigation, and only where the Idaho Water Resource Board itself will actually hold "minimum flows". The concept of optimal flows for fisheries is not recognized in Idaho Code. The Forest Service, the BOR, the Army Corps of

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Engineers, none of them can hold minimum flow water rights under state law. But then, under state law, I can't put a bucket outside of my house and collect water for fish in the Boise River because the system is "fully appropriated" and the fish didn't get any.

The quasi-religious fervor of Idaho water development and the real financial value of water rights, have created a state water rights system that just doesn't recognize the broader public needs for a healthy ecological system, clean water, or sustainable watersheds. For example: every instream flow water right approved by the state is subordinated to future potential irrigation development. For example: the state-approved minimum flow at Milner Dam is zero cubic feet per second, even though the river below Milner is so polluted that it can't possibly meet water quality standards without increased flows from above.

Idaho Rivers United members include people who hold irrigation and domestic water rights in the state. But our human rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness imply a broader water right than is recognized under either state or federal law. This is recognized in the judicial Doctrine of the Public Trust. Through it all water rights are subject to evaluation regarding their impact to the broader society. I have wondered how depleted groundwater, contaminated surface water and the widespread extinction of aquatic species could possibly pass any Public Trust evaluation.

We believe that the Doctrine of Prior Appropriation and the Doctrine of the Public Trust need not be at odds. We believe that the accepted concepts of beneficial use, reasonable diversion rates, and use-it-or-lose-it, leave plenty of room for intelligent multiple-use management of water. The federal government needs to recognize these principles and the state needs to re-evaluate how it can use them to achieve equitable, multiple use of

Our water resources.

Since 1906 the federal government has sent millions of dollars to help Western states run their water affairs without a lot of strings attached. Idaho has benefited tremendously. The Bonneville Power Administration took over when federal reclamation dollars started to get short. Again pouring millions of dollars in assistance to help Idaho run its water affairs.

Now that the limits of growth for water development have been reached, what will give? Now that the federal budgets have been maxed out, what will give? How should we approach the problems of competing demands Our water system?

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