BOISE—A bill sailing through the Idaho Legislature would allow water districts to use member fees to fund cloud seeding programs designed to increase water supplies.
State officials have determined that assessments collected from water district members cannot be used to fund such efforts, said Idaho Water Users Association Executive Director Norm Semanko.
Senate Bill 1100 would give water districts “specific authority to be able to spend a portion of their budget on cloud seeding, if that’s what the water users vote to do,” said Semanko, who introduced the legislation.
The bill passed the Senate 33-0 and was sent to the House floor March 10 with a “do-pass” recommendation.
The bill would pave the way for Water District 63 in the Boise River basin to partner with Idaho Power on a cloud seeding program that could add an additional 200,000 acre-feet of runoff per year.
Cloud seeding efforts in the upper Snake River and Payette River basins have been funded with money from the districts’ rental pools, which rent out surplus water stored in reservoirs.
The Boise district’s rental pool, however, is small compared with the Snake and Payette basins, and district 63 doesn’t rent enough water to fund cloud seeding efforts, said WD 63 Watermaster Rex Barrie.
The district has been trying to form a cloud seeding partnership with Idaho Power but the district’s ability to fund the effort with user fees has recently been called into question by state officials.
“Cloud seeding is one example of one of the things we’d like to be able to do in WD 63,” Barrie said. “But we need to have the statutory authority to do that and right now it’s not clear that we do.”
WD 63 provides water for 340,000 acres of irrigated land in five counties.
Jon Bowling, Idaho Power’s engineering leader, said the company started cloud seeding efforts last year in the Boise basin and the company estimates that when the program reaches full throttle in five years, with the help of WD 63, it will result in an additional 200,000 acre-feet of runoff a year on average.
That estimate is based partly on what the company’s cloud seeding efforts in the Payette basin are already accomplishing, said Idaho Power Meteorologist Derek Blestrud.
He said the additional water in the Boise basin would be “good for ... irrigators, good for recreation uses, good for wildlife and good for the power company.”
The legislation would only permit a water district to use member fees to fund cloud seeding efforts if water users in the district vote to allow their money to be spent for that purpose, Semanko said.
“It’s totally up to water users in the district,” he said. “This bill allows them to have that discussion.”
Source: www.capitalpress.com