MACHIAS – When Maine voters approved Question 5, they cleared the way for the first infusion of state money to support a farming practice that is growing statewide: irrigation.

The $17 million bond issue for pollution controls approved Tuesday includes $700,000 to help Maine farmers develop irrigation systems for everything from blueberries and strawberries to corn and potatoes.

John Harker, program manager for business development for the state Department of Agriculture, said the $700,000 is part of the department’s plan to assure that farmers have water for irrigation.

The money will help farmers decide how best to irrigate their land – and it will provide part of the money to develop water sources for irrigation.

The federal government already has allocated almost $700,000 to help Maine farmers install or improve irrigation systems, and the first three federal grants were awarded this fall.

So Harold Tyler of Addison will receive just more than $59,000 to pay up to 75 percent of the cost of installing a system to irrigate 16 acres of wild blueberries, said Susan Arrants, coordinator of technology and planning for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, a federal agency.

Another $100,000 is going to a farmer who grows strawberries, vegetables and sweet corn on a 90-acre farm in Cumberland County. Arrants said Lawrence Gilespies will use that money to improve an existing system.

And Double D Farms in Piscataquis County will receive $16,500 to improve the efficiency of an irrigation system for 57 acres of potatoes, she said.

Interest in the federal cost-share funds for irrigation was high- attracting 99 applications from growers in 13 counties, according to William Yamartino, assistant state conservationist for the conservation service.

Meanwhile, yet another pot of federal money – $500,000 administered by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation – is being allocated to help blueberry irrigators cover the costs of moving their pumps out of three Washington County rivers and their tributaries where wild Atlantic salmon are an endangered species.

The Washington County Soil and Water Conservation District is overseeing the allocation of those funds, and director Nate Pennell said 20 Washington County blueberry growers have applied for the 50-50 cost-share program.

Pennell said there are two alternatives to pumping from rivers or tributaries – high-production groundwater wells or storage ponds, where the grower siphons off water from the river or stream during periods of high flow and stores it for summer irrigation.

Developing a high-production well runs between $70,000 and $100,000, and constructing storage ponds costs $25,000 to $75,000, he said, and some growers have been considering several different ponds or wells.

Each cost-share grant is limited to $50,000. The review committee has given priorities to the applicants based on the most direct threats to salmon habitat in the rivers, he said.

The successful applicants will be announced in January. Pennell said he expects the seven growers in the highest-priority category and most of the seven in the medium priority will receive cost-share funds this year.

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation funds are targeted at irrigators farming in the watersheds of the Washington County salmon rivers.

But the $700,000 in the state bond issue will be available to farmers throughout the state.

Harker said full implementation of the state Agriculture Department’s blueprint for irrigation is on hold until the state Department of Environmental Protection’s sustainable water use committee completes its work. DEP is scheduled to report to the Legislature in January, Harker said.

The DEP panel includes representatives of industries such as blueberry and potato growers that make use of irrigation.

David Bell, executive director of the Wild Blueberry Commission of Maine, said the DEP panel has been grappling for more than a year with the same issues that have stymied previous efforts to develop water use management plans.

One is the federal permitting process for filling wetlands, a costly process that makes it difficult for irrigators to develop storage ponds close to water bodies, Bell said.

The other issue is a lack of specific hydrological information on the watersheds, incomplete information on who uses the water and how much, and the water needs of plants and animals within watersheds. Obtaining that information is expensive, he said, and no funds are available for that work, he said.

Meanwhile, the Land and Water Resources Council – a group of administrators of state departments that deal with Maine’s natural resources – will meet today and is expected to appoint representatives to a committee that will implement a Down East rivers water use plan.

The plan took almost four years to complete and applies to irrigation water withdrawals from three of the Washington County rivers where wild Atlantic salmon are an endangered species. The plan is a critical component of Maine’s Atlantic salmon conservation plan.

Henry Nichols, coordinator of the state salmon plan, said the water use plan promotes collecting additional information and steering irrigators away from direct withdrawals from the three water bodies – the Pleasant and Narraguagus rivers, and Mopang Stream, a tributary of the Machias.

But the plan does not resolve the controversy over wetland permitting, Nichols said. Some of the irrigators want to use low-value wetlands as storage ponds, but federal wetland regulations don’t permit that, he said.