Farmers in eastern Idaho would soon run out of water as a result of the state’s significant curtailment.
East Idaho farmer Brian Murdock, who was on “The Bottom Line” on Wednesday, cautioned about the order’s potentially disastrous effects on his company.
“Well, as you mentioned, the 500,000 acres have been curtailed by the state of Idaho and the Idaho Department of Water Resources. In order to put that into context, Murdock emphasized, “that’s roughly 781 square miles of farm land that are being taken out of production.”
“The biggest issue is that this is occurring during a year with a plenty of water, naturally. We have reservoirs that are absolutely full—I mean, they’re dangerously close to breaking. The rivers are at their highest point right now. Only attempting to prevent those dams from collapsing,” he continued.
The highest water use reduction in state history, according to the Idaho Groundwater Appropriators, a group that advocates for ground water consumers in southeastern Idaho that include municipal, industrial, and agricultural sectors. Hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland will dry up as a result, and the state may lose hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
Murdock carried on his family’s 135-year-old potato-growing tradition, but the state-issued order will cost him $3 million.
“One of the smaller farms is mine. Let me explain the impact as a potato grower, though. On the grain side of my business, I grow 16 million loaves of bread, and I grow 23 million enormous orders of McDonald’s French fries,” he said.
Murdock said he makes up less than one percent of the reason for the limitation to co-hosts Dagen McDowell and Sean Duffy. However, it is a “significant amount” because of the problems with farm land and security.
Governor Brad Little stated in a news release last week: “What people cannot see is what’s underground—the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer’s continuous depletion of water supply—especially in a ‘good’ water year. The Snake River receives its water from the aquifer. We are uniting and creating some momentum around attempts to get ground water users in compliance with an approved mitigation plan, just as we do as Idahoans.The governor “is empowered by the constitution to lift this restriction. That’s a component of his work and duty, according to Murdock.
He feels that other farmers in the state, including himself, are being “checkmated legally.”
“He’s [Idaho governor] choosing to try to make the two groups, us and this canal system, which down in southern Idaho, try to fight it out in what we call mitigation and come up with a private agreement among ourselves, rather than following the way the Idaho Constitution and the water law has kind of dictated that it should be,” he said.
“The resource is not providing us with its full economic benefit,” said Murdock.
