Utah Salinity Control Program

The Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Program was established during the enactment of the Clean Water Act. The seven Colorado River Basin states joined with federal agencies to prevent damages to lower basin states (Arizona, California, and Nevada) at the same time allow upper basin states to develop their compacted waters. A program that focused on improving irrigation efficiency was put in place and funded through Bureau of Reclamation, United States Department of Agriculture and the Basin States.

In Utah the program operates as a partnership with BOR, USDA, EPA, USGS, US F&WS, and BLM as federal agencies and UDAF, DEQ, DNR, local conservation districts, local conservancy districts, and local irrigation entities. These partners discuss, plan and implement projects which reduce the movement and flow of salts into the Colorado River and its tributaries. The projects also benefit local Utah residents with improved irrigation infrastructure, longer irrigation season, more efficient water use, and increased economies in project areas. Representatives from the state agency and local partners are members of the CRBSCP Forum, Advisory Council, and Workgroup which oversee and guide the salinity control program among the seven basin states.

The State Ground Water Program, administered by the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food (UDAF), was implemented in 1996 to assist private well owners in determining the quality of their drinking, irrigation, and livestock water. The program receives assistance from local conservation districts in the selection of wells to sample.

No eligibility criteria are published for this program, and intake is currently shut: "Applications for funding are currently closed. Please contact the salinity control program directly to address current projects or with questions about salinity control." There is no RFP, guidelines document, or application form on the page to read criteria out of — the only downloads are groundwater and conservation-district map indexes.

What the page does establish about who this is for:

• Producers are the intended beneficiary, not institutions. UDAF describes it as "a cooperative program with Utah Department of Environmental Quality, agricultural producers, Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Program Forum, and mining companies which discharge salts into the Colorado River Basin."

• What the money buys is an irrigation project on your ground. The program "allows mining companies to maintain production even when they are discharging too much (greater than 1 ton/day) salt into the basin by having them pay for irrigation systems which reduce salinity." A qualifying project is therefore one that reduces salt loading — in practice an irrigation-efficiency project on irrigated ground draining to the Colorado River or its tributaries. UDAF publishes no explicit county, watershed, or basin-boundary eligibility list, so do not assume your ground qualifies on geography alone.

• Utah only — the program is administered by the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food.

No acreage minimum, income test, tenure or ownership requirement, cost-share percentage, or audience priority (beginning, veteran, or otherwise) is published anywhere.

Your actual next step: contact the Salinity Coordinator, Duane Houston, 385-395-6701, to find out whether your ground and your project would qualify and when the next application round opens.

No cost-share percentage, award ceiling, match requirement, or payment rate is published on the program page, and intake is currently shut: "Applications for funding are currently closed. Please contact the salinity control program directly to address current projects or with questions about salinity control."

What the page does explain is the funding mechanism rather than any terms. The program "is a cooperative program with Utah Department of Environmental Quality, agricultural producers, Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Program Forum, and mining companies which discharge salts into the Colorado River Basin. This program allows mining companies to maintain production even when they are discharging too much (greater than 1 ton/day) salt into the basin by having them pay for irrigation systems which reduce salinity."

So in practice the producer benefit is a funded irrigation-efficiency project on your ground — UDAF cites "improved irrigation infrastructure, longer irrigation season, more efficient water use, and increased economies in project areas" as the local payoff — but the state publishes no share, cap, or per-acre figure for it, and there is no downloadable RFP or guidelines document on the page to read one out of. Contact the Salinity Coordinator (Duane Houston, 385-395-6701) for the terms attached to a current project round.

Application will be posted when available.

• US Dept. of Interior Salinity Control Program

• Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Forum