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- ~ C' .: c.) .,: ~o \ ~ , l I. r , I ~~ .' BEST copy 176 J. ENERGY, NAT, RESOURC1 during a last minute dispute during the I group of farmers protested the sale of' fearing that their agricultural lifestyle w. their water, The fanners had been using Wf ,-_..~.- ry River into Daniels Creek. The Utah Department of Water Resources (DWR) had planned to buy this diverted water and return it to the Strawberry River. The Daniels Creek farmers banded together and refused to sell their water rights to the DWR, which had no eminent domain authority." Unfortunately, the purchase of this water was part of a plan to clear the Strawberry River of "trash" fish and stock kokanee salmon, which was the top-ranking mitigation project for the CUP."' Using their leverage, the fanners demanded, and were given, $7 million to build the Daniels Creek Replacement Pipeline across the entire Heber Valley to "provide a permanent water supply" for the fanners.os This conflict was fought over a "puddle" of about 3000 acre- feet of water. Another contemporary example ofthe Owens Valley syndrome developed when the Montana Legislature considered water leasing as a means to return agricultural water to streams.99 This attempt to create a restricted water market failed because agricultural interests vehemently opposed private environmental entities funding the lease payments.'oo Montana farmers feared that wealthy nonresident landowners, like Ted Turner, were more concerned with fishing than farming. Thus, allowing private entities to lease water might "Ted N Daniels Creek lieB in the Heber Valley drainage, about 40 miles east of Salt Lake City, Utah. .. The Daniels Creek farmers were always reluctant to sell their irrigation water. See Hean1l88 on H.B. 3960, .upra note 50, at 721, 723 (description of Daniels Creek diversion system prepared by Central Utah Water Conservancy District). Representative Bill Orton championed the cause of these farmers in Washington, explaining that they were no longer willing to sell their water. Author's Personal Notes from Meeting with Officials of the Central Utah Water Conservancy District. the National Wildlife Federation, and Representatives Orton and Owens, in Salt Leke City, Utah, (Mar. 6, 1991). .. The DWR had already spent $3 million clearing Strawberry ~servoir of trash fish and stocking very young salmon. If the water was not returned to the Strawberry River by 1993, most of the salmon would die. Telephone lnterview with Larry Dalton, Utah Division of Wildlife ~80urces (Mar. 4, 1991), .. H.R, REP. No. 114, 102d Cong., 1st Sou. 120 (1991); see also Jim Woolf, Orton', Plan /0 Aid County Will HiM CUP by $27 Million, SALT LAKE TiUB" Mar. 13, 1991, at B2. .. See infra notea 128-135. '" Brian Morril, When Rivers Run Dry Urukr a BiB Sky: Balancing Agricultural and RecreatioBOl Claims to Scarce Water ReIOU~. in Montana. and the American West, 11 STAN. ENVTL. L.J. 259, 285 (1992).