Efficient and practical approaches to ground-water right transfers under the Prior Appropriation Doctrine and the Snake River example

Water right transfers are one of the basic means of implementing changes in water use in the highly appropriated water resource systems of the western United States. Many of these systems are governed by the Prior Appropriation Doctrine, which was not originally intended for application to ground-water pumping and the conjunctive management of ground water and surface water, and thus creates an administrative challenge. That challenge results from the fact that ground-water pumping can affect all interconnected surface-water bodies and the effects may be immeasurably small relative to surface water discharge and greatly attenuated in time. Although we may have the ability to calculate the effects of ground-water pumping and transfers of pumping location on surface-water bodies, mitigating for all the impacts of each individual transfer is sufficiently inefficient that it impedes the transfer process, frustrates water users, and consequently inhibits economic development. A more holistic approach to ground-water right transfers, such as a ground-water accounting or banking scheme, may adequately control transfer third-party effects while reducing mitigation requirements on individual transfers. Acceptance of an accounting scheme can accelerate the transfer process, and possibly reduce the administrative burden.