Hailey City Council begins planning to protect water rights
By JASMINE LINABARY<br><i>The Wood River Journal-Hailey</i>

The Hailey City Council is looking at ways to protect its short-term and long-term water rights.
During its Monday meeting, the council discussed short-term plans to expand the City of Hailey&#039;s historical water usage and long-term plans to develop a comprehensive report on the city&#039;s water supplies.
&#8220;I do believe we should move cautiously, but we need to move,&#8221; council member Fritz Haemmerle said.
The council decided to contact a local water rights attorney to begin outlining the city&#039;s options with other city officials.
The attorney, along with Mayor Rick Davis, will arrange to meet with the director of the Idaho Department of Water Resources to discuss the area&#039;s future.
Members of the public encouraged council members to develop a master plan and involve citizens in the process.
Concerns about water rights and usage were triggered by a presentation from Charles Brockway of Brockway Engineering regarding the Peregrine Ranch Recharge Project.
The Idaho Department of Water Resources plans to begin &#8220;conjunctive use&#8221; management in the Big Wood Basin within the next five years, which will combine groundwater and surface water uses.
While Brockway said IDWR is unsure what that will mean, it could involve reducing or cutting off water for all but domestic in-house water use. 
The Peregrine Ranch Recharge Project is one option the council could pursue to protect its water rights and increase its historical usage to prepare for &#8220;conjunctive use.&#8221;
Brockway said the recharge project would benefit Peregrine Ranch, as well as the City of Hailey and the Blaine County School District.
Brockway made the feasibility report and presentation to the council at the request of Hailey resident Harry Rinker of Peregrine Ranch. Peregrine Ranch is a proposed 60-acre residential development located 1.5 miles north of Hailey with a site encompassing 160 acres of land.
A recharge will involve sinking surface water into the ground to replenish an aquifer. This provides more water for area wells.
The project plans to recharge a portion of Peregrine&#039;s existing water rights in return for groundwater right protection from the city against priority calls and potential curtailment. 
Hailey currently uses Indian Spring as its primary water source but also uses significant amounts of water from its four wells, which were built between 1964 and 2001. 
City Engineer Tom Hellen said in a later interview when &#8220;conjunctive use&#8221; brings groundwater and surface water rights under one umbrella, the city&#039;s wells will be its newest water rights and will be susceptible to shut off.
Hailey owns a surface water right from the Big Wood River with a priority date in 1883 that has no restrictions for irrigation usage or total annual volume. The water, which the city has left mostly unused, is delivered from the river to the city by the Hiawatha Canal.
The Hiawatha Canal water right could be used within the city&#039;s service area if infrastructure allowed it, according to the report. Using the surface right for a recharge could avoid the need to develop a separate infrastructure to use the surface water directly.
IDWR may only allot the city what it recognizes as its historical usage of the water right, which Brockway said is 15 acres rather than its total worth of 143 acres. If the city starts to show more usage, that consumptive &#8220;credit&#8221; could provide water for the city longer before shut off would be required.
Brockway said the recharge project appears feasible from both engineering and regulatory standpoints. 
The project will require IDWR approval. According to the report, few plans of this nature have been approved.
One of IDWR&#039;s primary concerns for the project is its potential effect on the Big Wood River depending on the timing and location of the recharge, according to the report. Brockway said more analysis would have to be done to determine the best timing for the recharge.
Brockway said he estimates the IDWR approval process for the recharge project could take between 24 and 30 months.



	
&nbsp;


<span style="display: none">journal, newspaper, article, story, paper the journal, wood river journal, ketchum, hailey, bellevue, sun valley, top story, Hailey City Council begins planning to protect water rights</span>