Idaho Water Resource Board partners locally to recharge the aquifer
The Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer has been declining for some time. The Idaho Water Resource Board has developed a plan that could result in a recharge that’s capable of averaging 250,000 acre-feet of water a year by 2024.
IWRB has been steadily improving the managed recharge program in the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer since 2013. They believe that this season is the best one yet.
“We’re predicted to hit 500,000 acre-feet this year,” said Wesley Hipke, the recharge project manger of the IWRB. “Which is a record for the amount of recharge we’ve done in the past. It really is a testament to what we can do when we have the water and we have the infrastructure.”
A key component to the success of the managed recharge program is partnerships the IWRB has with many different canal companies.
“It really provides some proof of the people, and the state that have invested the money in this project,” said Hipke.
The IWRB picks contacts canal companies that may have an ability to recharge water. The Butte Market Lake Canal company are one of those partnerships.
“We feel it’s our responsibility to do all that we can to keep the aquifer full so all of us can have water,” explained Mark Mickelsen, the President of Butte Market Lake Canal Company. “From residential to commercial to farms to anyone else who uses water, which is really all of us.”
The company made the decision to help the recharge in the ESPA by running water through it’s canals for a few weeks prior to the irrigation season. The water resource board looks at areas like canals because water is very porous.
“They lose a lot of water through the bottoms of the canals, and they do help with recharge,” said Mickelsen.
Butte Market Lake Canal recharges about 40-50 acre-feet of water per day.
“We recognize that that’s not a lot of water,” said Mickelsen. “But if everyone in our state would do all that they can, little amounts become a lot of amounts and we can take care of the problem that we have with decreasing levels of in our aquifer.”
Canal companies and LWRB, also work to together determine places that could be recharged and areas to develop that could recharge water in the future.
“This program could work and really build up the aquifer so we have enough water to sustain the growth that we have and to grow into the future,” said Hipke.
IWRB compensates any of the canal operators by paying “wheeling fees” to recharge the site. Since 2013, the LWRB has paid $3.4 million dollars in wheeling fees, and with this record year they predict the recharge to cost more than $4 million in conveyance fees.
