WATER LAW
Assessing Idaho’s Groundwater Settlement: John Simpson of Barker Rosholt & Simpson LLP The Eastern Snake Plane aquifer in southern Idaho supports nearly 2 million acres of farmland, dozens of cities, and various industries across the region. In 2015, after years of contentious litigation and a declining water supply, groundwater users and surface water users in the region entered into a settlement to end the conflict over the management and use of the groundwater in the aquifer. The settlement was a critical step toward protecting Idaho’s water future and combatting rapid decline in the Eastern Snake Plain aquifer. Idaho’s water future is looking more secure than before the settlement, but there is still work to be done. Tyler Young, a writer for Irrigation Leader, spoke with John Simpson, a founding partner at Barker Rosholt & Simpson LLP, about the effects of the 2015 groundwater settlement, lessons learned, and plans for the future of groundwater in Idaho. Tyler Young: Please give us some information about your professional background and how you became involved in groundwater in Idaho.
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for Rosholt, Robertson & Tucker. John Rosholt was very active in the National Water Resources Association, and it was the preeminent water firm in southern Idaho. The firm represented a number of irrigation delivery systems, the Idaho Power Company, and other water users. I worked with engineers on the hydrology side and lawyers on the legal side—all good people. That is what led me to get into water. When I joined the law firm, in the early 1990s the state was starting up the Snake River adjudication. That court case led to adjudicating the Native American, federal, and irrigation entity claims. Toward the conclusion of the adjudication and the resolution of all the claims, a new issue popped up: conjunctive management of groundwater and surface water in Idaho. There really had not been any conjunctive management prior to the early 2000s. The laws were on the books, but the state was reluctant to start administering groundwater and surface water without a groundwater model. During the late 1990s, the state, with funding from the legislature and participation by private water users, developed the first groundwater model for the Eastern Snake Plain aquifer. The model came in on the heels of a multiyear drought and led to the first conjunctive management delivery call and litigation, which lasted for about 10 years before a settlement was reached in 2015. That settlement prescribed, as part of its terms, actions to be taken by the groundwater people to ensure that certain benchmarks in the aquifer, and ultimately an aquifer IRRIGATION LEADER
PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHN SIMPSON.
John Simpson: By education, I am a civil engineer, and I practiced as an engineer for 7 years before I went to law school. During my time as an engineer, I also got my MBA. I worked indirectly with water during part of my time as an engineer, designing and constructing pressure vessels for petroleum storage throughout the West. I then worked for Idaho Power Company as an engineer down in Hells Canyon. I negotiated power contracts for hydropower during that time as well. I then went to law school with the idea of bridging the communication gap between engineers and lawyers, the technical side and the legal side. When I got out of law school, I began working
John Simpson, partner at Barker Rosholt & Simpson LLP.
