Irrigators will suffer without compact
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Editor,
I am taking up the challenge from Ms. Susan Lake, and although I have spoken at a few of the local water compact meetings in the valley, this is my first time to have published a letter to the Valley Journal in favor of the Water Compact. Here are some questions and points of interest for the fence riders.
How can anyone claim they are going to get less irrigation water than before when they have never had a reliable means of measuring their consumption?
Just because an irrigation well has been test-pumped at a certain output does not mean that it is capable of pumping at that rate indefinitely without a recovery period.
When a person who has been flood irrigating for nigh on to 30 years, that doesn’t really qualify them as a bonafide hydrologist in the eyes of most scientists. Although it may bring them closer to that goal than it would for a real estate person, an ordinary engineer or an antiquated barrister.
It has been very difficult for us tribal members to try to understand the sheer paranoia that the opponents of the Water Compact have exhibited. If there is going to be a shortage of water, all irrigators will suffer at the same time with the same effect because of the way the delivery system is set up.
By the way, when the Water Compact is passed and delivery system gets repaired, who will be the benefactors? If the Compact doesn’t succeed, who pays for the repairs?
If the delivery system doesn’t get fixed, who will suffer? All irrigators.
If the Water Compact doesn’t succeed, how long can your annual yield be guaranteed, given the present condition of the delivery system. Those engineers and real estate people and quasi-hydrologists and attorneys of yore had better bone up on grant writing skills. Finally, what is the difference between senior and junior water rights? If you don’t know, ask any state official. Their response should be enough to give you pause.
Charles Tellier
St. Ignatius
