U.S. Water News Online
HAZELTON, Idaho-- Some farmers in southern Idaho who rely on pumping groundwater to irrigate their crops are opting to dry up some of their land for 15 years in exchange for money from the government.
"They're going to push us out sooner or later," farmer Wade Prescott told The Times-News. "We figured this was a good chance to get out before they do."
Irrigators with senior water rights in 2005 asked the state to shut down underground water pumpers like Prescott. The Eastern Snake River Plain Aquifer from which Prescott pumps water has seen water levels decline during the last 50 years.
Prescott said changes in irrigation practices, aquifer pumping and drought mean he and others could face more problems in trying to use underground water in the future.
So he decided to put 300 acres in the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, which started last May. The state and federal program pays farmers to let their lands go dry for 15 years.
"There are several people who came in and said, 'I need to get through harvest and then do this,"' said Wayne Hammon, executive director of Idaho's Farm Service Agency.
Farmers are paid $110 to $130 per acre of land taken out of production, Hammon told The Associated Press.
The conservation program for the Eastern Snake River Plain Aquifer will cost about $258 million, Hammon said. About $200 million of that will take about 100,000 acres out of production for 15 years.
The rest of the money, Hammon said, will be used for other expenses, including paying farmers a one-time signing bonus of $30 per acre, and $4 per acre every year for maintenance and weed control. He said farmers can also receive government money to share the costs of such things as hiring someone to convert farm land to wildlife habitat.
The project is expected to reduce aquifer pumping by 200,000 acre feet annually.
Hammon said that at the beginning of August, farmers had signed up more than 200,000 acres. But he said not all that land qualifies, and so far about 90,000 acres have been disqualified and 22,000 acres accepted. To qualify, land had to have been farmed four out of six years from 1996 to 2001, and had to be irrigated one out of the last two years.
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