Idaho water officials outline adjudication timeline, ESPA settlement and $30 million funding request

Matt Weaver, director of the Idaho Department of Water Resources (IDWR), told the committee the department’s priorities over the past year included staffing and reorganization, cloud seeding, Idaho Water Resource Board projects, adjudication and water administration.

Weaver said IDWR petitioned the courts to commence the Kootenai River Basin adjudication in January and expects a commencement order by midyear. He reported a split decision in federal court on whether federally held stock water rights can be forfeited; the state won on the central issue, but the federal government has appealed to the Ninth Circuit, delaying final action.

Weaver described an earlier loss of the department’s electronic document management system that affected roughly more than a million water-right records. He told senators IDWR rebuilt the system with assistance from the Office of Information Technology Services and private contractors and expects the remaining gap of documents to be searchable online by midyear.

On budgeting, Weaver said the governor recommended $30,000,000 ongoing for water projects (the Water Board administers the projects). IDWR requested five budget enhancements: funding that covers 10 staff positions (a continuing fund transfer), five new full-time positions to form a dedicated water administration bureau, a full-time public…