COEUR d’ALENE — Ongoing water rights adjudication in some parts of North Idaho could have significant implications, experts say.

Norm Semanko, an attorney who represents clients on water law, environmental and land use matters before government agencies, spoke Wednesday morning to an audience of people who had come from across Idaho and from around the region for the Idaho Farm Bureau’s annual meeting at The Coeur d’Alene Resort. 

Water rights exist for certainty and stability, Semanko said. 

“It’s a property right,” he said. “Just like you want to know you own your land and you’ve got a deed you can show to anybody to prove you’re the owner of that property, water rights are the same. They’re real property. They’re associated with your land.” 

During times of shortage, water rights are fundamental. The priority date of a water right determines who gets water when there is a shortage. 

“Just like highway districts deal with highways, so too do water districts deal with water distribution,” Semanko said.  

According to the Idaho Department of Water Resources, if there’s not enough water available to satisfy all the water rights, then the oldest water rights are satisfied first, and so on, until no water is left. When there isn't enough water to satisfy all water rights, new or junior water rights holders don’t get water. 

Water rights adjudication is underway or about to begin across North Idaho, Semanko said. The purpose of adjudication is to make a complete and accurate record of all water rights in a particular river basin, including surface and groundwater rights. The process allows water users to claim their water rights. 

Adjudication for the Coeur d’Alene-Spokane River Basin has been ongoing for about a decade and is nearly complete, Semanko said. More than 15,000 claims have been filed across four basins, many of which are now resolved. 

Semanko said some major claims, including Avista’s claim related to the Post Falls Dam and Hagadone Hospitality’s claim for The Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course, are held up because of their link to Lake Coeur d’Alene. Water rights issues involving the lake are complicated because tribal, state and federal authorities are involved. 

Claims-taking and reporting are underway for the Clark Fork-Pend Oreille River Basin adjudication. 

“What’s important here are the federal claims,” Semanko said. 

In January of this year, a district judge allowed the United States to move the deadline for federal agencies to file federal claims and off-reservation instream flow claims on behalf of the Kalispel Tribe of Indians. The tribe’s traditional homeland spanned some 200 miles from the Pend Oreille River to the Clark Fork River. Today, the Kalispel Reservation is in Pend Oreille County, Wash. 

“This is very novel and interesting from a legal standpoint,” Semanko said. “Claims have been filed in the Clark Fork-Pend Oreille adjudication that can potentially affect Lake Pend Oreille and Priest Lake by the United States, on behalf of an out-of-state tribe.” 

The claims are expected to be filed with the court in January. 

Semanko said the implications of a priority date for a water source like the Pend Oreille River, which dates back to time immemorial, are enormous. 

“I fully expect that the state of Idaho will object to those claims,” he said. “I think there are local folks who will band together as they did in the Coeur d’Alene adjudication, not because they don’t value what the tribe is claiming water for but because these are not recorded rights. They haven’t existed on paper.”