Water, water everywhere! Spring rains make a significant difference for all creatures. The conifer trees in particular are adapted for cold wet climates and they are clapping their hands with joy. They can now fend off the mountain pine beetle population a bit more effectively with more sap available to “pitch-out” the boring insects. The rains have also been coupled with nighttime temperatures above freezing thereby allowing the grasses to respire at night and they are all leaping quickly into their seed producing “boot stage” on every conservation property I visit. 

 

Seeing perennial streams and ditches that have not flowed well during the past two decades of drought spring to life reminds us all of the history of agriculture built upon an extensive water deliver system that still serves to keep our valley verdant well into August. As it has turns out, up until now, productive agriculture has been our greatest and least costly conservator of open space in Jackson Hole. With agriculture came water laws and rights, which now overlay almost everyone’s private home lot and/or subdivisions. All water right holders, whether you irrigate or not, are obligated to contribute to the cost of maintaining the delivery system that brings water from the source. Wise landowners do not obliterate the apparently dry ditches that cross their lots because unless one is an ardent student of the complex irrigation systems in the Valley, one can end up with flooded land, crawl spaces, and/or basements. The largest issues for homeowners are ditch neglect, or failure to clean the ditch, and the loss of water rights by doing nothing. 

 

Learn about your water rights and be aware that state laws require that each lot owner contribute to the cost of maintaining the system all the way to its source. Those costs can be placed upon one’s property taxes for failure to pay when other landowners need to maintain a main ditch. Moreover, filling in ditches on your land is asking for floods and moving toward abandoning your water rights. Abandoned water rights can then be filed for by other landowners.

–Tom Segerstrom