PUB00042

• Year: 1994
• Title: Using Water Banks to Promote More Flexible Water Use - Final Project Report USGS, Award 1434-92-2253
• CWCB Section: Water Conservation & Drought Planning
• Author: MacDonnell, Howe, Miller, Rice, Bates
• Description: Report about water banks -- conceptual analysis of the designs, 3rd party effects, etc.
• Publications - Doc Type: Brochure

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source of funding for improving water user facilities and efficiencies.''' In addition, the
Board was given authority to appoint local committees to operate storage rentals at a
local level.'
Short-term water rentals in Idaho have a much longer history, dating back more
than 60 years to the water short years of the late 19205 and early 19305. Annual water
rentals with little state involvement became a co=on practice in the Upper Snake
River Basin and continued until 1979 when a more formal procedure was adopted.

2.1.1 History of Water Rentals in the Upper Snake Basin
As early as 1928 water users in the Upper Snake River Basin looked at
opportunities to rent water on an annual basis to meet periods of water shortage. One
of the first years of rentals, 1932, witnessed a temporary transfer of 14,700 acre-feet of
water at 17 cents per acre-foot. This practice continued with no formal rules or pricing
mechanism in place until 1937, when the Upper Valley Storage Pool was formed to
establish policies and rules governing water rentals in the upper basin, and a fixed rental
price of 50 cents per acre-foot was established.'
Most storage space in the Upper Snake River Basin has been developed under
Bureau of Reclamation projects. The issue of whether a storage space holder may profit
from the rental of project water, debated today, was suggested even in these early days of
water rental operations. Any. amount collected for the rented water in excess of 12 cents
per acre-foot had to be divided equally between the spaceholder and the Bureau of
Reclamation, under the Bureau's interpretation of its repayment contract with the

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'Idaho Code ~ 42-1761 (1990).

'Stephen H. Riggin and H. Jerome Hansen, Idaho Dept. of FISh and Game, 'Phase 1 Water Rental Pilot
Project: Snake River Resident FISh and Wildlife Resources and Management Recommendations' (Oct. 1992).
at 15 [hereinafter Water Rental Report].

'Ronald D. Carlson, Watennaster, Water District I, Idaho Department of Water Resources. 'The History
of Water Banking in the Upper Snake River,' (about 1988) [hereinafter Carlson History]; and telephone
conversation with Ronald D. Carlsoli (Oct. 1, 1993).