Spudman March 2023 - 32

Bureau of Reclamation, Pacific Northwest Region
Major Storage Reservoirs in the Upper Snake River Basin
Henry's Lake
89% Full
(79,272/90,000 acre-feet)
Little Wood
46% Full
(13,883/30,000 acre-feet)
Ririe
56% Full
(45,396/80,540 acre-feet)
Island Park
77% Full
(104,728/135,205 acre-feet)
Jackson Lake
21% Full
(178,038/847,000 acre-feet)
Grassy Lake
74% Full
(11,244/15,180 acre-feet)
American Falls
53% Full
(886,040/1,672,590 acre-feet)
Milner
55% Full
(27,668/50,000 acre-feet)
Lake Walcott
70% Full
(66,981/95,180 acre-feet)
Feb. 18, 2023. Provisional data and subject to change.
Tale of the Teacups: Upper Snake River Storage needs more water. Image: U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
" We've got to find a bunch of spots
above Milner (Dam) that we can put
that water into the aquifer and not let
any of it leave, and that's where the
state comes in, " Bedke said. " We're
being very aggressive about putting up
infrastructure and diverting the water
back into the aquifer. "
Jeff Raybould has a unique
perspective in the ongoing discussion
of Idaho water allocation. Not only
is Raybould an Upper Valley potato
farmer, he is the chair of the Idaho
Water Resource Board.
Raybould recognizes that the current
debate over the 2015 agreement for
aquifer recharge and the looming
potential for water curtailments is one
that has been developing for far longer
than the past two years.
" I believe we have the ability to
manage this thing, " Raybould said. " We've
been very successful in implementing a
managed recharge program. "
32
Spudman * March 2023
Raybould said that there is often a
significant amount of annual spring
runoff that the state should capture
and store.
" On average there is a million acre-feet
a year of water that spills over Milner
Dam and goes to the ocean because
we don't have enough surface storage,
and we didn't have aquifer recharge
capacity to capture those flows, " he said.
" I think that we can capture a significant
amount of that water as we build up
that capacity, and we can manage how
we capture and hold that water in the
basin. I think maybe we can take care of
this additional demand that we see out
there to grow more forage crops and still
have our other traditional crops have an
adequate water supply. "
Cloud seeding is another venue that
is helping add to the annual snowpack,
Raybould said.
Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen is a firstyear
legislator in Idaho. Mickelsen's
family is a large agricultural producer in
the Upper Valley.
Mickelsen said that the 2015
agreement failed to take into account
drought years versus strong water years.
" It's only been the past two years that
there's been a problem, " she said, " but
you also hit hot, dry years. The problem
is, when you have something like that, it
has to have some flexibility. It becomes
a much more challenging situation as
far as the reductions go. "
In spite of the drought and the low
snowpack the past two years, Mickelsen
Farms has met its groundwater
reductions every year, she said.
However, because the groundwater
district that the farm belongs to did
not meet its reductions, they were
facing a curtailment.
" It's very punitive to individual
growers that met those reductions,
that made those adjustments to their
operation, that shorted their grain crops
Palisades
26% Full
(316,724/1,200,000 acre-feet)

Spudman March 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Spudman March 2023