January 2019 Newsletter

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

By Gawain Snow

Ramblings from the President

As some or most of you know, Voneene Jorgensen is retiring from the Bear River Water Conservancy District after 25 years. We send best wishes and wish her and her family many enjoyable retirement years. I personally have enjoyed working with Voneene over the years. As with many of you, she became one of my favorite people in the water world. Voneene seemed to always have a smile, a cheerful attitude, good judgement and a let’s get done personality. She will leave a big gap to be filled.

As I look at the possible exodus of those water managers, within the industry, I would encourage boards to start considering what your succession plan is. As with Voneene, you don’t just lose an employee, you lose years of experience, relationships and leadership that cannot be replaced overnight. Bringing on your next manager and getting in some training and orientation will be money well spent before he or she walks out for the last time.

I would remind you of the Utah Water Users Workshop March 18-20th at the Dixie Center in warm St. George. The Workshop Committee has done another excellent job of putting together presenters that will be informative and you get to associate with the best people in Utah. We appreciate our Vendors that bring new ideas and products for our consideration.
I hope to see you there – Let it Snow

WATER & THE LAW

By Devin L. Bybee, Smith Hartvigsen

S.B. 96 – Canal Amendments

The General Adjudication of water rights in the Utah Lake-Jordan River basin, which began in 1936, is steadily moving forward. The Court, the Special Master, the Utah Division of Water Rights, and the Utah Attorney General’s Office have made significant progress in this enormous and historic effort. On December 3, 2018, the Special Master filed his Fifth Status Report to the Court, detailing the progress with the General Adjudication since his last Report on June 15, 2018. Some of the key highlights are listed below.

Reports and Recommendations

The Special Master issued 25 Reports and Recommendations to the court to dispose of objections. This raises the total number of Reports and Recommendations that the Special Master has filed to 153.

Resolved Objections

All objections have now been resolved in the following subdivisions:

  • Spanish Fork Subdivision, Book 1 (51-1)
  • Spanish Fork Subdivision, Book 2 (51-2)
  • Palmyra-Lakeshore Subdivision (51-3)
  • Cedar Valley Subdivision (54-1)
  • Round Valley Subdivision (55-1)
  • Salt Lake County Central Subdivision (59-2)
  • Salt Lake County West Subdivision (59-3)
  • Salt Lake County Southwest Subdivision (59-4)

In addition, the Special Master estimates that by mid-2019, he will have Reports and Recommendations issued for all objections that predate his appointment, except for the Hobble Creek Subdivision (51-4). The Special Master estimates that Reports and Recommendations for the Hobble
Creek Subdivision will be completed by the end of 2020.

Ongoing and New Adjudication Areas

The adjudication process has been initiated in all subdivisions in the Salt Lake County East Division. In addition, the General Adjudication process will be starting in areas of Utah County and Wasatch County that have not previously been adjudicated in recent decades. These areas where new adjudications will be initiated in the near future include:

  • Lehi Subdivision (55-4)
  • American Fork South (55-5)
  • Provo City South Subdivision (55-6)
  • Provo City North Subdivision (55-7)
  • Provo Canyon (55-9)
  • Midway (55-10)
  • Daniels Creek (55-11)
  • Lake Creek (55-12)
  • Jordanelle (55-13)
  • Francis-Woodland (55-14)
  • Upper Provo River (55-15)

You can find additional information about the active adjudications, including maps of each subdivision, information on individual water rights, and objections within each subdivision, at the following link:

https://www.waterrights.utah.gov/adjdinfo/activeAdj.asp

If you receive notices concerning any of the subdivisions, make sure you understand what the notice is about and make sure you meet any deadlines in those notices or your water right(s) could be lost. The author may be contacted at 801-413-1600 or at dbybee@water.law.

Water Outlook

As of January 1st snowpack is near normal at 92% across the state compared to 51% last year. The storm over the first January weekend bumped up snowpack for all the basins with an increase of over 12% in many basins. Forecast for the next 8 – 14 days looks pretty good with a predicted pattern of low pressure and above average precipitation across the state.

The long term forecast is not looking so rosy where the current El Niño pattern is expected to continue over the next few months resulting in a wetter southern Utah and equal chances to the north. Despite the El Niño currently in effect all of Utah is experiencing a relatively normal snowpack year. More would be better but normal is pretty good especially compared to last year.

We still have the rest of January and three more months of potential snowpack increase or, unfortunately, lack of snowpack increase. If the current 7-10 day storm frequency continues throughout the rest of the winter months then we’ll end with a normal to above normal snowpack and like I said earlier above normal snowpack would be great but average ain’t too shabby.

MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR’S
CORNER

By Carly Burton

Water Users Workshop

We have another great program lined up for the St. George Workshop to be held on March 18-20. The first general session will be presented by Ian Lyle, Executive Vice President of NWRA. He will discuss critical water related issues in congress including aging infrastructure funding, Clean Water Act issues, Endangered Species issues, forest health and other issues that are important to the Western States. The other general session will be an update on Utah’s water supply and water outlook presented by Troy Brosten with NRCS and Brian McInerney with NWS. We have a full program and for the first time, every room is reserved for speaker presentations on both March 19 and March 20. There are a few changes when you register this year. We have 2 categories of registration fees, one for members and one for non-members. If you are not a member of our Association and you would like to join, go to our website at www.utahwaterusers.com.

Go to the “How to Join” topic and it will give you instructions on joining. In addition, we are transitioning to a paperless event. When you register look for the question if you would prefer downloading the Workshop documents on your phone or iPad or if you would prefer a folder with all the documents. Just check the box of your choice.

If you did not receive the 2nd workshop brochure in the mail go to our website or go to Utah State University Conference Services website at http://conference.usu.edu/uwuw/ or call them at 435-797-0421 or call me at 801-560-2533. We will also be having the golf tournament at Coral Hills Golf Course on Monday, March 18 as well as the bike ride event. Check the brochure or the websites for more detailed information.

Water Law & Policy Seminar In St. George

In conjunction with the Utah Water Users Workshop, the Water Law and Policy Seminar will be held on Monday, March 18 at the Dixie Convention Center in St. George. We have another great program this year with topics that reflect important legal issues associated with water rights, legislative activity, important court cases and other topics of interest to the legal community as well as to all water users in Utah. The brochures will be mailed out very soon so look for the brochure in the mail. For more information contact Don Barnett at Barnett Intermountain Water consulting at 801-292-4662 or e-mail Don at dbarnett@barnettwater.com.

NWRA Update

On January 10-11 the National Water Resources Association (NWRA) held its annual Leadership Forum in Phoenix. The purpose of this conference is to prioritize important state issues for NWRA staff regarding Congressional legislation. The highest priority issues were set by the member states included the following issues in priority of importance:

  1. Aging infrastructure financing legislation
  2. Clean Water Act/Waters of the U. S. legislation
  3. Title Transfer for Bureau of Reclamation projects
  4. Headwaters protection, wildfire and forest health
  5. Appropriations and Budget for key agencies including USBR, Army Corps of Engineers, NRCS and USGS
  6. Endangered Species Act reform
  7. Flood policy including government participation, insurance financing and river treaty involvement
  8. Farm Bill legislation and forest health funding
  9. Water Rights including Native American settlements and federal claims under state laws

While all of these issues are important, the first three were the highest priority for the 14 member states who participated. If you have other concerns involving federal Congressional legislation please do not hesitate to contact me at 801-566-0736 or you can e-mail me at
carlybarbaraburton@gmail.com or contact Ian Lyle at NWRA at nwra@nwra.org.

Utah Legislative Update

As most of you already know the 2019 Utah legislative Session begins on Monday, January 28. We are hearing rumblings that the governor wants to either lower or remove the sales tax portion that was previously dedicated to water development. If you have heard anything feel free to let us know. Other water related bills of interest include the following:

  • HB 12 Instream Flow Water Right Amendments
  • HB 31 Water Supply & Surplus Water Amendments
  • HB 91 Agricultural & Land Amendments
  • HB 143 Water Conservation Plan Amendments
  • SB 17 Extra Territorial Jurisdiction Amendments
  • SB 22 Sunset Re-authorization-Safe Drinking Water Act
  • SB 23 Sunset Re-authorization-Water Quality Act
  • SB 52 Secondary Water Metering Requirements
  • SB 66 Dam Safety Amendments
  • SJR 1 Joint Resolution Supporting Study of Water Banking in Utah

Undoubtedly, there will be additional bills that will be introduced before and during the 45 day session. If you have concerns or issues with any of these or other bills please do not hesitate to call me at 801-560-2533 or e-mail me at carlybarbaraburton@gmail.com.