Toni Meacham: Wrangling Water Law in Washington
By Kris Polly
Toni Meacham is a highly respected ag and water attorney in central Washington State. She is also an active, fifth-generation rancher. Her personal and family background as well as her legal training gives her and insider’s knowledge of ag and water law, making her a highly effective advocate for Washington agriculture.
In this month’s Irrigation Leader, we also bring you the fascinating stories of our country’s small irrigation districts. Two of those districts are in Texas: Meredith Allen and Caroline Runge, the current and outgoing managers of Texas’s Menard County Water Control and Improvement District No. 1, are working to repair the district’s historic irrigation canal, built by the Spanish in 1756, and to revitalize irrigated agriculture in Menard County. Oscar Gonzalez of the Hidalgo County Water Control and Improvement District No. 19 is dealing with the encroachment of urban development and the complications caused by the construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
In Arizona, General Manager Rex Green of Yuma Irrigation District is working to ensure food safety, to raise funds for infrastructure improvements, and to mitigate the effects of drought in an area that provides 90 percent of the United States’ winter produce.
Mark McConnell, the general manager of western Nebraska’s Keith–Lincoln County Irrigation District, is working to pay for infrastructure improvements, in part by running water for Nebraska’s natural resources districts through his district’s canals during the offseason for groundwater recharge.
Karl Burns, president of Colorado’s Stewart Ditch and Reservoir Company, tells us about the company’s recent Bureau of Reclamation–funded project to pipe a portion of its historic ditch with pipe manufactured by Diamond Plastics.
General Manager Brad Edgerton of Nebraska’s Frenchman-Cambridge Irrigation District tells us about the radio communication towers that his district is putting up to operate its Rubicon automated gate system.
Finally, we speak with Dee Waldron, a farmer in Weber County, Utah, who has undertaken significant water efficiency projects on his property.
Small irrigation districts represent something truly admirable about the United States: How local producers come together to cooperatively build, fund, and operate infrastructure projects that benefit all, and how skillful managers leverage limited funds and resources to maintain and improve their districts’ water infrastructure.
Kris Polly is the editor-in-chief of Irrigation Leader magazine and the president of Water Strategies LLC, a government relations firm he began in February 2009 for the purpose of representing and guiding water, power, and agricultural entities in their dealings with Congress, the Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal government agencies. He may be contacted at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.