Small rant....well, big rant actually.

[Slowngreen]

Well yesterday was officially the last day for irrigation water for my area. A company, Simplot, owns generators at Magic Damn Res. and last fall they found a small oil leak in a tank. Instead of figuring out how to go under water and fix it, they threatened to sue the local Canal Co. for a million bucks a day until they agreed to dump around 30,000 acre sq.ft of the water.
Of course, they agreed because it wouldnt have done anything except make them go out of business and everyone lose their jobs. So this year when water got turned back on it had only raised back up around 15k.
Anyways yesterday it was turned off with only 5k left in the resi. Most of the guys I haul hay for only got one crop. Our oats luckily made it to head but once their cut thats obviously that and now everyone who runs irrigation water for their lawns will need to start likeing the color yellow lol. Sucks.

Bright side is we will have until next May for it to fill as much as possible so hopefully we'll be closer to normal.

Just wanted to share. They screwed everyone over who has water rights this year and apperently theres nothing that can be done about it.

 

[Phins Fan]

I feel sorry for people who have to have the water metered. That just plain sucks. Living on the east coast I have never seen that although our reservoir does get low from time to time and the water turns a nasty brown. Luckily we have a natural spring 1 mile from home and I have used a sump pump in the past to water our garden from the brook across the street (If the town says to not drink it I cant imagine it would do my veggies any good either).

 

[Slowngreen]

I will be using well water for my small garden for sure.

 

[Royiah]

I feel extremely blessed to live in a town with a free flowing well. We only have to pay a small fee for all the water we want. I lived in NY for a few years and gosh was water expensive! I had no idea that people charged water by how much you used at the time.
I was very naïve then.

 

[ErnieCopp]

Hard for you folk to believe how bad the water situation is here in So. CA. Some of it comes 500 miles from Northern CA, so all of it is priced that way. I just have a half acre here, Lawn is sprinkled, but flowers and garden mostly on drip lines. Water for two months billing periods during growing season runs from $700 to $900.00. Avocado and Citrus farmers cannot afford to buy it, and they probably get it for a lot less than homeowners do.

 

[Phins Fan]

WOW!!!! $700-$900 is more than what I pay for an entire year!!! I suppose living in the northeast does have some perks

 

[Slowngreen]

Here, to buy a water share is $2k, for one share. But if you luck out and can rent shares their $35 each per season. Takes about a share per acre usually, so were trying to do 40 acres, but getting that rented is all luck, either you get them first or not. You call in to the Canal Co. at midnight on jan 1 and put your name in and how many shares. Always works out that the bigger names around get them, its annoying how that works. But their out of them too since the waters gone lol.

 

[ErnieCopp]

Slow,
One of the best features of my place up in Bonners Ferry, was being located on the Kootenai River. When i bought it, the water was taken directly from the river, but that was too dirty for drip irrigation, so i dug a 20 foot well near the river bank, and the permit was for all i could use, just paying for electricity to pump it. The cost was so small i do not even remember what it was.

The water permit there stayed with the property, and could not be sold separately from the land.

Ernie

 

[finkikin]

Hard for you folk to believe how bad the water situation is here in So. CA. Some of it comes 500 miles from Northern CA, so all of it is priced that way. I just have a half acre here, Lawn is sprinkled, but flowers and garden mostly on drip lines. Water for two months billing periods during growing season runs from $700 to $900.00. Avocado and Citrus farmers cannot afford to buy it, and they probably get it for a lot less than homeowners do.

Holy crap!

 

[Slowngreen]

Slow,
One of the best features of my place up in Bonners Ferry, was being located on the Kootenai River.

Been up to bonners ferry once, very nice up there.