[Vision2020] A bit of Naylor History

[Phil Nisbet]

In 1999 I first met the people of the Naylor family.  They are great folks 
whose family has been a part of the Moscow Community since there has been a 
town of Moscow way back in the 1870's.  Their family Farm was broken up in 
one of those typical small percentage ownership by grandchildren and great 
grandchildren configurations that make management of family farm property so 
difficult.  As a favor, they asked that I look at their mineral resources 
and I told them at that time that the lack of infrastructure on the property 
made the ground of little interest to any mining company.

In 2000, I suggested that the Naylor's talk to Chris Storhok, who was the 
Latah County Rural Development Coordinator, about alternative crops.  The 
farm was not always making them money and their wheat receipts were less 
than they could make from selling the property and putting the money into T 
Bills.  Chris and I spent many hours looking for suitable possible crops for 
them to switch to.

In that search, it became obvious that the best yields for the soil types 
that we have here in Latah County would be irrigated crops.  The ground here 
is not suitable for irrigation, but drip irrigated terraced crops had a 
possibility.  The most interesting potential was of course grapes and a 
possible value added of growing sufficient grapes to have a local winery.

The University of Idaho had previously suggested that growing grapes here in 
Moscow was not possible, but expert advice from several wine growing region 
Universities suggested that we look at Wineries in places like Colorado, 
where they are growing wine grapes at elevations as high as 8000 feet.  
Those outside experts looked at the data from the property and noted that 
the degree temperature days on south facing slopes on the Naylor property 
were suitable for growing varietals that would make high value wine grapes 
with good sugar contents and that the frost cycle here in Moscow was 
actually a good thing for growing those varieties.

The key the experts said was a need to stop winter loses in vines by making 
micro climate using ponds and lakes.  With those ponds and lakes, Naylor’s 
would experience loses estimated at an acceptable 5%, but without them the 
lose would be 30%.  Another thing they would need was water to drip irrigate 
and also to mist the grapes during the late summer hot days that we 
experience here in the Palouse.

An initial estimate of the earth that needed to be moved to create the lakes 
required was over 2 million tons of dirt.  There were 199 suitable acres of 
south facing slopes on their property and there were 150 acres of suitable 
valley bottoms to turn into lakes in the vicinity of those south facing 
slopes.

Because the family owns its property free and clear, they had the funds to 
put in the vineyard and get a well drilled, but they were still way short of 
funds for the big lake building project.  Moving 2,000,000 tons of earth is 
not cheap and that cost was 6 million dollars.

There is a small market for potter’s clay in the Pacific Northwest that no 
large company supplies local clay for.  The Naylor’s hoped that they could 
sell potters clay, the materials that the City of the Arts loves so much at 
our local festivals, to potters and ceramicists.  The total market for that 
clay is only about 5000 tons of clay a year, but that would pay for moving 
the earth to build the lakes and set up their winery.

I had a cousin who used to own an artist colony and winery called Vintage 
1864 in California.  It was one heck of a tourist draw and looked like a 
wonderful fit for something that would get support from the community.  
Chris Storhok, prior to his leaving for Fairbanks Alaska, felt it was a 
complete fit for the County’s desires to see that sort of growth that kept 
Moscow and Western Latah County rural.

Then the Naylor’s went to attempt to get a water right for what they 
estimated would be 30-69 million gallons of water needed to drip irrigate, 
wash a small amount of clay and mist the grapes in the high heat periods.

First, Idaho Department of Water Resources insisted that they apply for a 
huge amount of water, equivalent to the highest possible water use in very 
dry Southeastern Idaho.  The Naylor’s were shocked by the number that was 
suggested and withdraw their initial request.  They then requested a total 
based on a four month irrigation season for only the 199 acres.  IDWR still 
insisted that they had to apply for the maximum water use which was 3 acre 
feet of water for each of the 199 acres.  That was way more water than the 
Naylor’s needed; in fact it was hundreds of millions of gallons of water 
more than they needed.  And that kicked off a fire storm.

The Cities of Moscow and Pullman and the two Universities here on the 
Palouse own the water rights to the bulk of our water.  In order to get 
started, they required that geology work be done to show that the Naylor’s 
could get any water at all on their Farm.  You see, after millions of 
dollars of 'research', the Palouse Basin Aquifer Committee (PBAC) which 
actually solely represents those entities, the experts had mapped all of the 
Naylor property as granite rock and therefore without the potential to 
contain any water resource at all.  Having looked at the geology of the 
farm, I knew that not to be the case.

They were required to do what no person has ever had to do in the History of 
the State of Idaho, prove the existence of water prior to even drilling a 
well to test that water.  Though it was not required by law, the Naylor’s 
agreed to a Protocol to protect existing users that was more stringent than 
any such agreement anywhere in the state.

But drilling the geology holes and doing trenching, mapping and the rest was 
going to cost them a lot of money.  The expertise to do the ground work was 
going to cost them close to $25,000 alone.  So they went to work on a shoe 
string, asked me to help them by doing some work for free as a friend and 
spent several years of their wheat receipts to try to get what PBAC wanted 
them to have.

So holes were drilled and lo and behold, instead of hitting granite at a 
depth of 30 feet, as had been predicted by certain geologists at PBAC, 
Granite basement was at a depth of 470 feet and water was coming artisan 
from the core holes.  But that suggested that the model under which the 
Cities of Moscow and Pullman and the two Universities controlled all the 
deep water of the region was wrong and that some other mechanism was at 
play.

Normally under Idaho law, when protestors withdrawal their protest the 
people who intervene on their behalf are instantly withdrawn.  In the case 
of the Naylor’s, that did not happen.  As a matter of law, the Protestants 
and the interveners have to have water rights which might be impacted.  Not 
one of the interveners had a water right in play.  IDWR still let the 
interveners in this case continue the legal action to block a water right by 
Naylor.

And then the politics came hot and heavy.  The intervener groups claimed 
that the Naylor’s wanted 2.4 Billion gallons of water, as much they said as 
the city of Moscow and Pullman combined.  Bother that such a request if 
actually carried out would have placed 38.4 feet of water over the top of 
their farm, they had never requested that much water.  Even though PBAC 
itself told the intervener groups and the newspaper and the rest that the 
figure was wrong, it is still being trumpeted as what the Naylor’s asked 
for.

Then of course, since the geologist who worked on the property for them 
works for a minerals company in real life, the theory was that a giant 
conspiracy was afoot by an evile mining company.  I did the work in my off 
time, with my boss's permission, but there was no economic value on the 
Naylor’s place that would make our company's level of interest. Though my 
boss told all sources that we had no interest in the property, deep pockets 
statements and inferences that this is all a mining company ploy, are still 
being bruited about.

Then for fun, the interveners tried to have me jailed.  Idaho has a 
licensing law for geologists.  That law exempts company staff geologists and 
I have never bothered to get a license that has no meaning for my work.  So 
I was turned in to the Idaho Board for the Registration of Professional 
Geologists and criminal actions were commenced by the Latah County 
Prosecutors offices against me.  Why?  I had worked against the interests of 
the interveners and postulated a geology that they did not like.

At the same time that the interveners were attacking me for the lack of a 
license, they proceeded to hire several geologists to refute the work that I 
had done.  Trouble was that most of the people they hired or got involved in 
their claims were not licensed and to top it off, they were not even exempt 
as company staff geologist and had been avoiding registration for years.

After clearing me of wrong doing, the Idaho Board of the Registration of 
Professional Geologists tried to get me to turn all the other people in.  
Unlike the interveners, I do not try to send people who disagree with me to 
jail.  I declined the opportunity.

Then the Naylor’s were granted an initial right to drill and test to see if 
they could get the required water.  Further protests kicked up.  Further 
hearings became required, though that is not common in Idaho law and has 
never occurred once the protestors have withdrawn.

If you read the results of that hearing in Glen Saxton of IDWR's findings, 
you wonder what planet we are on.  The Naylor’s are being told that to get a 
water right, they need to prove before they drill a water well that a well 
to test the presence of the amount of water on the property will have no 
impact on any other water users.  How do you perform such a test if you can 
not drill a well?

Then there is the geology that the finding has.  It does not recognize any 
of the work carried out even by PBAC over the last 20 years.  It says that 
we exist in a uniform single two unit basin.  Not one of the intervener’s 
geologists suggested that in hearings, yet now it is a matter of record and 
that has consequences.

You see, now that IDWR has ruled that there are only two aquifers and that 
all roads lead to Moscow and Pullman, who are the senior water rights 
holders in the Basin, all rural water belongs to them.  If WSU builds a new 
golf course, fine, the water belongs to them.  If Moscow build a new park 
and waters it with groundwater, fine, the water belongs to them.  If the 
cities and the universities decide to piss water away, the Naylor ruling 
gives them that right, because they own the water.

And the IDWR was not shy in telling you that.  They were quite specific that 
their ruling on Naylor did not say that no additional water north of town 
could be appropriated, they said that it could, just that the senior water 
right holders own that water, not the people who own any of the land.

So the Naylor’s are back to the drawing boards and most likely will sell out 
to the property developers who will build a raft of trophy homes north of 
town and strip malls along the mile and a half of highway frontage that were 
Naylor Farms.  That housing and those malls will end up using more water 
than would have gone into the Naylor’s plan, but what the heck, it is all 
within the plans of Moscow to expand to the north and keep control of all 
rural water.  So years from now, when you drive past the Box stores and into 
North Moscow Estates at the foot of Moscow Mountain, ask yourself what sort 
of victory and at what price has been gained.

Did the Naylor’s screw up all along their path?  Yes they did.  People who 
are not particularly schooled in this sort of thing doing work on a shoe 
string tend to do that.  They were not well heeled and not part of a 
standard minerals company who are used to dealing with permits or agencies 
or any of the rest.  So the weight of governments and the whole community 
fell on one family who were just trying to build a dream of keeping Grandpas 
farm a farm.

And for some of you here on Vision2020, a warning.  Mary Jane Butters 
operation is an organic farm which drip irrigates and supplies you’re Coop.  
Mary Jane Farms does not have a permit or water right to use irrigation 
water.  Following the Naylor ruling, the City of Moscow has the right to 
demand that drip irrigation on that Mary Jane Farms be terminated.  The same 
is true for the rest of you who use your domestic water for irrigation of 
crops.  The law is pretty specific, domestic water may only be used for a 
house and for a quarter acre of lawn as a maximum.  Irrigating commercial 
crops, organic or not, is not covered.  Moscow, Pullman and the Two 
Universities were just granted the right to turn off the water, after all, 
with the Naylor ruling, they own it.

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