Dear editor:

I would like to update everyone on my research on various issues concerning the Shoshoni Irrigation District (SID) over the past week. In regard to the statement by Mr. Duyck where he stated that the Bureau of Reclamation allows for the smaller landowners to be charged more, when the Bureau of Reclamation was contacted, they stated that this was not correct and further that the bureaus’ public relations member would be contacting Mr. Duyck to clarify his understanding of their (the bureau’s) position. 

At the close of Mr. Duyck’s Letter to the Editor, he states “..if you are not in production agriculture, you are lucky to have project water.” I contacted the Wyoming State Engineers Office — Board of Control and I corresponded with Mr. Kevin Quick, Natural Resources Program principal. I inquired about being “lucky” to have project water at all. Mr. Quick responded, “Water rights are intended for anyone wanting to put Wyoming water to beneficial use regardless of use. Every water right is just as valid as another water right regardless of the use. They may have different priority dates which become important during regulations, but overall every water right grants user access to the waters of Wyoming regardless of use.” 

Further, Mr. Quick states, “The facility (pipeline, ditch or canal) that your water right is conveyed through does not impact the validity of your water right. All water rights regardless of facility, use or quantity allow for the same access to the water of Wyoming. The only difference would be the priority of the right. Each irrigation district may vary on how they operate internally, but the overall principal should be the same that each water right as long as it’s in priority grants the right to put the waters of Wyoming to beneficial use regardless of facility, use, and quantity.” 

Further Mr. Quick states, “When the canals and facilities the irrigation district uses were originally created by a Bureau of Reclamation project, I believe the Bureau of Reclamation still operates Buffalo Bill Reservoir.”

“Anyways, when that project was built that was the intention of it was to reclaim lands and place them under agriculture production. So that statement may be true as that was the intent but they are still subject to Wyoming Water Law which recognizes a long list of beneficial uses and none of them are more important than the other. The State of Wyoming is still the owner of all the waters of the state and everyone has the right (with a permit) to put that water to whatever beneficial use they need it for whether that is domestic, miscellaneous, irrigation, municipal, industrial or stock, just to name a few.”

Therefore, my water rights appear to be just as valid as any other water right of the same priority and to say that only large industrial agriculture has first right to water is a bit simplistic. 

About 60 days ago, I had made a Wyoming Freedom of Information Act (WFOIA) request and one of the items that I requested was the meeting minutes from when the SID approved the current $20,000 in agricultural sales requirement to seek election as a commissioner of the SID. I had asked before for this information, but this time I received a copy of the SID meeting minutes for the Jan. 12, 2005, meeting and at the bottom of page one it states the following:  “Stroh discussed the qualifications needed for a landowner to serve on the District’s Board of Commissioners and how the Buffalo Bill Dam was built for agricultural purposes. Stroh made a motion to require that to be elected a commissioner of the District the land owner must have gross agriculture sales of $20,000 for their assessed land as a qualifier. Seconded by Faxon and the motion carried unanimously.” I will place a copy of this on the website shoshoneirrigationissues.com so that everyone may review this document. To keep this letter short, I will address this matter in future further letters.

Lastly, I also asked Mr. Quick about the process of transferring or abandoning water rights, in case anyone who had very few acres with water rights and was feeling squeezed by the current landowner fee and feels that their cost per acre was excessive. Personally, I would abandon the water rights as it seems more straight forward. Mr. Quick stated: “…please see attached petition for Voluntary Abandonment as well as an ADWR (Authorization to Detach Water Rights) Form. The petition and ADWR form will need to be filled out/completed with the information of the appropriation you are affecting. If you are unsure of the appropriation being affected, please let me know and we can help provide that information. We would just need the legal description (Township, Range, and Section) of the property where the water rights exist. There is no filing fee associated with a Voluntary Abandonment Petition (emphasis added) but if you are abandoning portions of an appropriation and not entire lots or quarter-quarters then a surveyed map will be required to depict where the appropriation is being abandoned from.

There is a filing fee of $10.00 per page with an ADWR and the mapping requirements would be the same for a Voluntary Abandonment Petition.” 

Here is the contact information for Mr. Quick: 

Kevin Quick

Natural Resource Program Principal

Board of Control 

Herschler Bldg. 2W

Cheyenne, WY  82002

kevin.quick@wyo.gov

307-777-6960

The forms and examples that were provided are also posted to the shoshoneirrigationissues.com website.  

Rob Stevens

Powell