Kootenai River map

BOISE — A water right adjudication in the Kootenai River basin in northern Idaho is next on the state’s to-do list.

The recently introduced House Bill 687 would authorize the Department of Water Resources director to petition a district judge to commence the adjudication.

Effective management of the basin’s water “requires that a comprehensive determination of the nature, extent and priority of the rights of all users of surface and groundwater be determined,” according to the bill.

Some 3,000 claims are expected to be filed, according to the bill.

Water Resources over the last five fiscal years received more than 5,000 well drilling applications and 2,000 new water right applications from Grangeville to the Canadian border, “demonstrating the population growth we are seeing in northern Idaho,” said Craig Saxton, who manages the department’s adjudication section. “That is all the more reason to define these water rights, and to protect the water users and their interests as growth occurs.”

An adjudication is a court proceeding that inventories and catalogs water rights at a moment in time, according to the department, which provides technical expertise. The court issues a decree confirming each water right. Fifth District Court in Twin Falls conducts the adjudications.

Idaho water rights are considered personal property rights, and an adjudication “allows us to define those water rights,” Saxton said.

“In order to manage the water rights, we need to understand them,” he said.

Once started, the adjudication will take about five years and cost $3.25 million, plus funding for negotiating federal claims, according to HB 687’s purpose statement and fiscal note. Claim filing fees are expected to cover about 10% of the adjudication’s cost.

New employees would not be needed for the proposed Kootenai adjudication, according to the note. IDWR staff assigned to the adjudication in the neighboring Clark Fork-Pend Oreille Basin would remain for the Kootenai adjudication after they complete their current work.

Kootenai is the only administrative basin in the state that does not have an active general-stream adjudication, Saxton said.

Adjudications are in progress in the Bear River, Clark Fork-Pend Oreille, Coeur d’Alene-Spokane River and Palouse River basins. The Snake River Basin Adjudication’s final unified decree was signed in 2014.