Idaho farmers who suspect beavers are damming water
that could be irrigating their fields can call on state officials
to throw the beavers out – even when their dams are on private
property. Idaho Gov. Phil Batt signed the bill in mid-March.
The legislation grew out of a dispute between
two groups of property owners near the Big Wood River, south of Sun
Valley. Three ranchers with water rights from the Broadford Slough
along the river blame a beaver pond located on private property
upstream for taking irrigation water during drought years. Doubtful
that local efforts could resolve the issue, one rancher asked his
attorney to solve the problem with
legislation.
The attorney drafted a bill that
requires the state Department of Water Resources to investigate
complaints about beaver dams and determine whether dams are
affecting water rights. If so, the Department of Fish and Game is
authorized to enter any land to modify or destroy the
dams.
“We haven’t decided yet how we’re going to
approach it,” says Ken Norrie, assistant director of the Department
of Fish and Game. “The main thing we’re concerned about is that it
puts our employees in a tough position. There is an anti-government
feeling in the state and throughout the country. Doing this isn’t
going to help that any.”
“One week they’re
talking about the overbearing state and federal officers and
jackbooted thugs, and the next week they say you can trespass on
private property,” complains another Fish and Game Department
officer.
Some bill proponents pitched it to the
legislature as a remedy for newcomers’ attempts to impose their
aesthetic values on Idaho’s traditional uses of its resources – in
this case, that beautiful beaver ponds are more important than
downstream irrigation. Such a conflict has indeed been developing
in the state over the past few decades, especially in resort areas
such as Sun Valley. But both of the property owners seeking to
maintain the controversial beaver pond claim deep Idaho family
roots.
The dispute over the new law centers on
the ecological effects of beaver dams. Lynn Tominaga, water analyst
for the Idaho Water Users Association, says that by holding back
water, beaver dams allow water to percolate downward into the
groundwater table, making it unavailable to properties immediately
downstream.
“I can’t buy that unless the pond is
really quite deep,” counters Harold Jones of the Idaho Department
of Water Resources. Jones says most beaver ponds are not deep
enough to generate enough pressure to force the water through the
ponds’ accumulation of sediment.
The contention
that ranchers’ lose water from beaver ponds through evaporation
appears more substantial. Jones says evaporation amounts to about
one acre-foot of water, or 365,000 gallons, per acre of pond per
year. Tominaga says a southern Idaho farmer normally uses 2.5-3.0
acre-feet of water a year for each irrigated
acre.
But beaver ponds also help farmers. In dry
years, the water stored in them may provide an extended watering
season, according to a memo written by a Fish and Game biologist
analyzing the bill. The ponds actually spread out valuable
nutrients and are “probably the main reason why Broadford Slough is
a fertile farming area,” the biologist
concluded.
Despite the apparent heavy-handedness
of the recently passed legislation, people on both sides of the
issue say they are willing to cooperate.
“If it’s
proven that there is a water loss, we’ll do whatever it takes to
correct that,” says one property owner near the Broadford Slough
beaver pond.
The landowners have proposed
installing culverts that would allow the water to be discharged
from the ponds when it is needed
downstream.
Tominaga says he hopes the bill will
act as a means of providing scientific determination, rather than
guesses, about the effects of beaver dams on water
supplies.
“Hopefully,” he says, “the director (of
the Department of Water Resources) will base his decisions on
facts, not biases.”
* Greg
Moore
The writer works out of
Ketchum,
Idaho.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Beavers land on the hot seat in Idaho.
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