Duchesne offers 3,000 acre-feet to water users

DUCHESNE — One of the hottest commodities in the world is going to be available "at a very reasonable price" to water users who draw irrigation water from the Duchesne River drainage.

Three thousand acre-feet of supplemental water from Starvation Reservoir will be allocated soon to interested and eligible water users for as long as the water holds out. The reservoir is located a few miles west of Duchesne city.

The Duchesne County Water Conservancy District has scheduled an information meeting for Nov. 16 to find out how many irrigation companies, farmers and ranchers are interested in contracting for the additional water out of Starvation Reservoir, said district manager Randy Crozier.

The water is expected to be allocated and available for the 2007 irrigation season, he said. Three thousand acre-feet of water is the equivalent of 3,000 acres filled 1 foot deep with water, (enough surface area to hold approximately 2,275 football fields.)

Negotiations among officials of the Duchesne County Water Conservancy District, the U.S. Department of Interior and Central Utah Water Conservancy resulted in an agreement with the federal government to allot the unassigned "block" of water to the county.

The water could benefit qualifying lands stretching from the Hanna and Tabiona areas on the county's west side, east to areas below Myton.

Once the list of interested parties is compiled, the district will decide where the water will go.

"Determinations will be made through an evaluation process. Ideally it would be nice if there is only an interest in 3,000 acre-feet of water, and then the process would be pretty simple," said Crozier. "The difficulty comes when you have more people interested in the water than you have water available."

Evaluations have shown there is a need for 9,000 acre-feet of water to bring existing water rights up to full water rights in the Duchesne drainage.

According to Crozier, subscribers will be on notice that if future population growth in the county creates a pressing public need for culinary water, this water would be subject to conversion from irrigation to municipal and industrial use.

"Part of the contract spells out that if M&I (municipal and industrial) water is needed in the future, it will be a proportional reduction across this block of water, but it won't be an immediate reduction," he said.

The contract mandates that water users receive two years notice before any reduction would take place so they can change their farming practices.