American Falls reservoir at lowest level since 2013

It’s been a pretty dry summer with little rain so far. The dry summer has taken a toll on local reservoirs.

Right now, the American Falls reservoir is at 11 percent capacity. The Bureau of Reclamation said the American Falls and Palisades reservoirs are the two biggest reservoirs so they get the biggest load every year. And this year, the BOR said there was a high demand from irrigation this year.

“We’re pretty low,” said Michael Beus, water operations manager for the upper snake river region of BOR. “We started out this year with a near-normal forecast in April but it’s been very dry since May and very warm too. So the very dry, very warm conditions reduced our inflow and resulted in very high demand this year.”

Records from the BOR show the American Falls reservoir is currently at about 200,000 acre feet of water storage. The average for this time of year is about 550,000.

“We’re just now approaching those thresholds – the severe thresholds, so mostly the impacts are on recreation,” Beus said. “There’s been essentially no launch facilities on the American Falls reservoir for a couple of weeks now.”

Beus said there would be other effects if levels were to drop even further.

“When we get American Falls lower than it is now, then we start to mobilize sediment and have water quality issues,” Beus said.

But Beus said he doesn’t anticipate that. He said the outlook can change quickly and the rain on Sunday really helped. He expects to be able to make it through the rest of the season okay.

“At this point, we’re balancing storage between American Falls and Palisades and everything changed this last weekend so we’re going to get by just fine,” Beus said.

KIFI/KIDK looked at records for the reservoirs from the past 10 years. The last time the American Falls reservoir dropped lower than 11 percent capacity was in 2013. But the lowest it’s ever been was in 2007. So Beus said the level it’s at right now is not the lowest he’s seen. He expects snowfall and spring flows to get those levels back up to where they need to be for next year.

Besides American Falls, Palisades and Island Park reservoirs are the next two lowest. Palisades is at 14 percent capacity and Island Park is at 15 percent.

Currently, one one ramp at the Palisades reservoir is open for launch access for boats.