Opinion ID: 3133246
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Joe Creek Water Rights

Text: Wilber Van Wey owned a parcel of land on the Salmon River in the Horseshoe Bend area. In 1929, the Idaho Department of Water Resources (IDWR, formerly the Department of Reclamation) issued Van Wey a license for 2 cubic feet per second (cfs) of water from Joe Creek, a tributary of the Salmon River, to irrigate twenty-nine acres of land. 2 An open ditch conveying water from Joe Creek to Killgore’s property had existed since James and Josephine purchased the property in the 1960s. The water was conveyed by the open ditch from Joe Creek to a reservoir on Killgore’s property. This ditch went across the property of a nonparty Ernest and Judith Robinson and the Killgore-Mullinix parcel. This water from Joe Creek was delivered to the Killgore-Mullinix parcel for one irrigation season in 1966. In 1966, James filed for a water right from Joe Creek. In 1972, the Robinsons granted James an exclusive easement to construct a water diversion point at Joe Creek. In 1987, Killgore piped the open ditch and buried the pipeline from its point of diversion at Joe Creek on the Robinson property to Killgore’s property. The Soil Conservation Service, now the National Resources Conservation Services, provided Killgore $21,000 to pipe the ditch. Killgore did not construct the pipeline with an outlet or delivery point for the Killgore-Mullinix parcel, although the pipeline goes through the Killgore-Mullinix parcel as did the ditch. In 1988, Killgore filed a notice of claim to water right No. 79-4001 with the SRBA court to divert 2.6 cfs of water from Joe Creek to 130 acres for the beneficial use of irrigation.