Groundwater users facing curtailment say they won't negotiate with surface water users and will instead pin their hopes on a Nov. 28 hearing to decide their fate.

The state has threatened to shut down groundwater wells next spring unless pumpers can provide water owed to surface-water users under agreements called mitigation plans.

The details of the mitigation plans are in dispute, and state hearings are scheduled to sort them out.

Junior and senior water users have been in constant negotiations for years, but now, the pumpers say they're fed up, leaving the state to decide their disagreements.

"We've tried to sit down with them before and the only solution we keep hearing from the other side is that we've got to curtail," said Lynn Tominaga, executive director of the Idaho Ground Water Appropriators that represents the pumpers.

Groundwater pumpers are running out of water to offer surface-water users, Tominaga said, and surface users aren't willing to make concessions. Pumpers aren't willing to voluntarily curtail, he said.

Surface-water users say they want the water owed to them under the law, and if that means pumpers have to close wells, they'll have to close wells.

Negotiations between the groups broke down once earlier this year at a state water summit hosted by Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter. Wells were hours from being curtailed when the pumpers offered a last-minute deal approved by the state.

This year, the pumpers owe 20 percent more water under one of the mitigation plans, but talks to prevent another curtailment have been fruitless.

Former Chief Justice of Idaho Gerald F. Schroeder will oversee the first water hearing, scheduled for Nov. 28. Other hearings are set for later this winter and early next year.