U.S. Water News Online
TWIN FALLS, Idaho -- Look up and wave. Satellite images can tip off state water regulators that you're irrigating with water you don't have a legal right to use.
The Idaho Department of Water Resources is using satellite imagery -- not so detailed that it can make out a house or a person standing in the yard, but it can show irrigated tracts of land.
Computerized water rights maps are layered over satellite images that display irrigated land as bright red shapes in a patchwork of greens, whites and yellows. Any red areas not surrounded by a water right boundary are red flags for water managers. From there, an inspection may begin, and citations can follow.
In the past, enforcement was driven mostly by complaints about improper water use, said Allen Merritt, Water Resources' regional manager in Twin Falls. But now water managers have images of the thousands of acres of irrigated farmland across the Snake River Plain at their fingertips.
``It's like a permanently open pair of eyes in the sky,'' agency spokesman Dick Larsen said.
The technology has been adapted from water right inventories and mapping done through the Snake River Basin Adjudication, the state's massive water rights case involving water users in 38 of the state's 44 counties. The SRBA is providing Idaho with a modern catalog of water rights and resolving a myriad of Idaho water law issues. The more than 20-year-old adjudication has cost the state about $60 million.
Water Resources has used the combined satellite and mapping technology in the SRBA since 1997. Three years ago it applied the technology to spot unauthorized water use during the irrigation season.
The idea of being watched from above is in some ways distasteful, Larsen acknowledged. But the technology allows the department to manage water use to the degree that Idahoans want it. The department has always said that Idahoans don't want a water police force, but they do want the state's water managed, he said.
``If we hear one ongoing complaint, it's that we're not enforcing our own laws,'' Larsen said.
Life in the arid West hinges on water, after all, and water disputes are as old as the settlements here. But today, it's not the farmer with the biggest pitchfork who wins.
The satellite technology can give the public confidence in the state's ability and accuracy in managing water, Larsen said.
Cindy Yenter is the department's water master for groundwater use on the north side of the Snake River in the Magic Valley. Comparing satellite images from year to year is a simple way to observe general changes in irrigation use across the region, she said.
Some people think of it as ``big brother,'' but most people she has encountered have been pleased illegal water use is being stopped, she said. It can be a relief for people who don't want to report their neighbors.
``People are getting the message,'' Yenter said.
Last year there were seven notices of violation issued in the region, compared with one and possibly two more this year, she said.
Investigations have ranged in size from 24 acres to 150 acres.
Most people work with the department to solve the problem and negotiate fines -- that can be as much as $300 an acre -- down to paying the department's investigation costs of a couple hundred dollars, Larsen said.
The technology has been used for the past three years with state water managers, focusing initially on two new southern Idaho water districts. The districts are north of the Snake River from Hagerman to Rupert and from Rupert to north of Idaho Falls. Major legal disputes between water user groups have been under way in these areas, with some irrigators wanting water users to account for all of their water consumption.
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