FEATURE Water Banking in Utah: Voluntary, Temporary, and Local Nathan Bracken
UTAH’S GROWING POPULATION presents a number of opportunities and challenges. Perhaps one of the greatest challenges is the question of how one of the driest states in the country will supply water to a population that could nearly double by 2060. To address this challenge, Governor Gary Herbert convened a multi-stakeholder group of experts in 2013 to develop a set of recommended strategies that could inform the development of a 50-year water plan. In 2017, Governor Herbert’s team issued a recommended strategy that calls for Utahns to work together to provide clean and affordable water to sustain communities and businesses, while also supporting robust agriculture, ample recreation, and a resilient and healthy natural environment. To this end, the strategy identified a number of potential recommendations Utah could use to satisfy its growing water demands. It also identified water banking as a key tool that could support a variety of recommendations focused on supporting agriculture, improving water quality, facilitating water markets and temporary transfers, and improving instream flows.
Banks do this by providing a transparent and accessible forum in which willing right holders can advertise the availability of their water rights for lease so that interested parties can secure the temporary use of the rights quickly. A key benefit of water banking is that it allows a water right to be used for multiple uses without changing the underlying ownership of the right and allowing the right holder to use the right for its original purpose after a lease has expired. If deployed correctly, water banks could provide an alternative to so-called “buy-and- dry” water transfers in which water rights are permanently transferred away from agriculture to supply urban demands. In addition, water banks could serve as a market tool that facilitates low cost, voluntary, and temporary transactions that provide both income to water right owners and greater access to water for a variety of uses, including environmental uses, through spot market transactions. For instance, a farmer who does not want to farm for a given season could deposit a water right in a bank and receive passive income for the right until such time as the right is
needed. Conversely, a farmer with a junior priority right that is usually curtailed in late summer but wants to do a third or fourth cutting of hay in a particular year could lease water from a water bank for the months the water is needed rather than incurring the expense of permanently acquiring an additional, more senior water right. Within the context of urban needs, a public water supplier experiencing a drought or other temporary stressor could lease the water needed to address the passing shortage instead of permanently acquiring water rights that it will not need in most years. Recognizing the potential benefits of water banking, the Utah Legislature unanimously passed SJR 1 in March, requesting recommendations for the 2020 legislative session on how the state could develop a voluntary water banking program to carry out the goals of the Governor’s recommended water strategy. Sponsored by Senator Jani Iwamoto
(Photo credit: The Bear River, photograph courtesy of L. de Freitas)
Water banking is a flexible concept and exists in many forms in other western states, such as Idaho, Washington, and Kansas. Informal banking already exists in Utah to some extent, often in the form of lease pools and other such programs offered by certain water companies. In its most simplistic form, a water bank facilitates the transfer of water from one use to another.
and Representative Stewart Barlow, the resolution stated that any water banking recommendations should recognize that the majority of water rights in Utah are agricultural in nature and incentivize the participation of agricultural producers. Among other things, the resolution expressed support for the continued study of how water banking could support
September 2019
VOLUME 21 - NUMBER 5 | 11
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