Water lack leads to complaints

Six customers who receive irrigation water through Anderson-Cottonwood Irrigation District aired frustrations about infrequent irrigation schedules and dry pastures at a district board meeting Sept. 10.

"If the water rotations stay at a 14 day interval, I will be forced to cease my operation due to lack of profitable production," ACID customer Bill Gregory said in a letter to the district. "I will then be forced to make some tough decisions that could be detrimental to all of us."

The district considered the letter a threat to sue, as Gregory has sued in the past. In 2008, Gregory received $150,000 from a settlement with ACID's liability insurance company. The insurance company reasoned that fighting the lawsuit would have been more expensive, according to district board president Ron Jones. Gregory filed the lawsuit over damages to cattle operations due to a lack of water.

"If you're going to sustain agriculture, you need to irrigate more often than 14 days," said Gregory, who irrigates 20 acres in the Churn Creek bottom region.

"When I first moved here I got water every 11 to 12 days, now it's no less than 14," said Lee Ellison, who irrigates two acres in Churn Creek bottom region. "If there's a north wind, (my pasture is) dried out by the tenth day."

"(These) customers (are) demanding to receive the same water service they had in the old days," District 5 board member Brenda Haynes said. "Although it has been explained to them numerous times, they seem to ignore that fact that ACID now operates under a 40-year contract with the Bureau of Reclamation that differs from the previous 40-year contact (which ended five years ago). This small handful of customers continues to live in the past."

Haynes added that none of the other approximately 800 ACID customers complained about the rotations.

"I have no complaints, period," Milton Jurin said on Friday of irrigating 110 acres of pasture in the Churn Creek bottom region.

Jurin also leases another 45 irrigated acres. While admitting that he deals with weeds too, Jurin reiterated that he has no complaints with the district's 14-day water rotation.

The irrigation district is required by law to provide water on an equal basis to its customers, Jones said, adding that the district cannot deliver more water to some without taking water away from others.

"Some areas are physically impossible to deliver water on less than a 14 day rotation," ACID Director Stan Wangberg said, adding that it was unclear whether there was enough water in reserve for the extra rotation.