LEWISTON, Idaho (AP) — A controversial new study challenges long-standing science that pins salmon declines in the Snake River Basin on dams.
Welcome to our new website. We have a new login system for you to access the full newspaper online.
Please click here to learn how to activate your new account.
Bear with us as we move into this new site and bring over all our old articles and photos.
BOISE — The Idaho Water Resource Board has agreed not to divert 200 cubic feet per second of streamflow under its recharge water rights from Dec. 1 through Feb. 15, allowing that amount of water to remain the Snake River for other uses, including hydropower production, below Milner Dam in th…
SODA SPRINGS — The State of Idaho filed a petition on Nov. 20 requesting the 5th District Court to commence the Bear River Basin Adjudication, a legal process in which a court reviews and confirms all existing water rights in the Bear River Basin, the Malad River Valley and the Curlew Valley.
BOISE — A district judge has ruled the Idaho Department of Water Resources can forge ahead with creating a large groundwater management area to prevent water users from mining the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer.
SEATTLE (AP) — A major storm carrying high winds, drenching rain and heavy snow is headed for the Pacific Northwest, according to weather experts.
A slow-moving crisis threatens the U.S. Central Plains, which grow a quarter of the nation’s crops. Underground, the region’s lifeblood – water – is disappearing, placing one of the world’s major food-producing regions at risk.
PORTLAND, Ore. — A coalition of environmental and fishing groups are suing a water district in southern Oregon over an aging, privately owned dam that they say hinders the passage of struggling salmon populations in the pristine North Umpqua River.
An Idaho State University research team has received a $1.3 million grant to study how streams that typically go dry for much of the year affect downstream water quality.
An association of nine Eastern Idaho canal companies should benefit greatly during the upcoming irrigation season from excess surface water shareholders stored in the aquifer during the past water year.
BOISE — Idaho Rural Water Association (IRWA) earns the 2020 State Association of the Year Award in the Awards of Excellence competition awarded by National Rural Water Association (NRWA). This is the second time IRWA has earned this award since its incorporation in Idaho in 1987.
Coming off a strong water year, Aberdeen-Springfield Canal Co. General Manager Steve Howser is encouraged by weather models showing the region is likely in store for another wet winter.
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — A new management plan that will guide future decisions and address urgent issues like climate change has been approved for the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area.
BOISE — A meager return of sockeye salmon to central Idaho this year despite high hopes and a new fish hatchery intended to help save the species from extinction has fisheries managers trying to figure out what went wrong.
Other effects are harder to measure, but can be just as harmful. One example is agricultural nitrogen runoff from farmlands in the Mississippi River Basin. It mainly comes from fertilizer that farmers apply to millions of acres of crops.
The Nampa & Meridian Irrigation District’s Precinct 1 director is up for re-election Nov. 3, and candidates and polling places have been announced.
News Trending Today
-
Crapo-backed nuclear bill heads to Senate floor
-
FOOTBALL: High Country all-conference teams released
-
ICU doc: EIRMC is informally 'rationing care'
-
APG announces Women of Influence winners
-
HIGH SCHOOL ROUNDUP: Driggs scores 24 as Thunder Ridge downs Skyline in boys basketball
-
Wiseman, Eric
-
Substitute teachers handle high demand this fall
-
Henrie, Dennis
-
Local liberal hypocrites
-
Do we care?
KLAMATH FALLS, Oregon — President Donald Trump issued an executive order Tuesday afternoon to formally establish a dedicated committee to address federal water-related issues.
The Mink Creek watershed supports a wide variety of recreation uses with many quality trails and camping spots close to home in Pocatello.
SPOKANE, Wash. — Environmental groups are vowing to continue their fight to remove four dams on the Snake River in Washington state they say are killing salmon that are a key food source for endangered killer whales.
ABERDEEN — For several decades, flowering rush remained a problem with no clear solution for the managers of the Aberdeen-Springfield Canal Co.
SPOKANE, Wash. — The U.S. government announced Friday that four huge dams on the Snake River in Washington state will not be removed to help endangered salmon migrate to the ocean.
BOISE — Recent water level monitoring data shows the volume of water stored in the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer has increased by about 350,000 acre-feet in the past year and 2.2 million acre-feet in the past five years, officials told the Idaho Water Resource Board Thursday.
Today, state agencies are asking Utahns to reduce water use during the heatwave as the drought’s hold on the state tightens. Researchers at Utah State University have similarly been studying how much of a water reduction crops can handle before impacting yield.
August is the month for two garden W’s: weeding and watering. Regular attention to both keeps a vegetable or flower garden pretty and productive well into autumn.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Federal regulators on Thursday threw a significant curveball at a coalition that has been planning for years to demolish four massive hydroelectric dams on a river along the Oregon-California border to save salmon populations that have dwindled to almost nothing.
MIDLAND, Washington — This summer, anyone driving through Klamath Project land will likely pass by many empty fields, left fallow after farms received only 40 percent of their required water allocation this year.
BOISE — The Idaho State Department of Agriculture is seeking public comment from the agriculture community on its proposed changes to rules around pesticide and chemigation use and application.
One of the Treasure Valley’s key leaders in the area of irrigation water system management is leaving his post.
Friends of the Teton River faced a challenge: how to celebrate the farmers and ranchers who have partnered with the nonprofit to enhance soil and water health, and how to best educate the public on what’s happening behind the scenes in the Farms and Fish Initiative.
A Pocatello attorney recently prevailed in a monumental, decades-long water rights battle, stopping a planned 300-mile groundwater pipeline to Las Vegas that threatened a Native American holy site.
LEWISTON, Idaho (AP) — An Environmental Protection Agency report provides details about how federal government dams in the Snake and Columbia river system raise summer water temperatures, hurting endangered salmon runs.
The Idaho Water Resource Board recharged approximately 447,950 acre-feet of water into the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer in the winter of 2019-20, according to a staff report presented on Tuesday.
LONGVIEW, Wash. (AP) — The Washington state Department of Ecology in an historic move has required federal operators of eight dams on in the Columbia-Snake rivers to create a plan to keep the waters cold enough for adult salmon survival.
KENSINGTON, Maryland — A two-decade-long dry spell that has parched much of the western United States is turning into one of the deepest megadroughts in the region in more than 1,200 years, a new study found.
All of Idaho had received below-normal precipitation for the water year through April 1, with the Wood and Lost River basins experiencing the most notable shortfalls, according to a recently released water supply outlook report.
SPOKANE, Wash. — Some environmental groups are complaining about the teleconference format for gathering public comments on a federal government proposal to save salmon runs on the Columbia River system.
KLAMATH, Calif. — The second-largest river in California has sustained Native American tribes with plentiful salmon for millennia, provided upstream farmers with irrigation water for generations and served as a haven for retirees who built dream homes along its banks.
The 500 miles of canals in the Nampa & Meridian Irrigation District received water on Wednesday, the start of the 2020 irrigation season.
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — People in Washington state remain sharply divided on whether four federal hydroelectric dams along the Snake River should be removed to help endangered salmon and orca recover, a state report concluded.
Following a dry February, most of Idaho still had a better-than-average snowpack to start March, and water managers stepped up releases from the Eastern Snake Plain reservoir system.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A long-awaited federal report out recently rejected the idea of removing four hydroelectric dams on a major Pacific Northwest river in a last-ditch effort to save more than a dozen species of threatened or endangered salmon, saying such a dramatic approach would destabi…
EVERETT, Wash. (AP) — Washington state environmentalists, farmers, tribal leaders and public utility officials are awaiting a federal report concerning whether four Snake River dams can coexist with a dwindling salmon population.
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Legislation granting an emergency water right when crews are trying to clean up spills in Idaho waterways passed the House on Tuesday and is headed to the governor's desk.
BOISE — A bill was introduced in the Idaho Legislature Jan. 29 that, if passed, would begin the process of adjudicating water rights in the Bear River Basin.
KLAMATH FALLS, Oregon — Despite the accumulation of recent snow in the mountains and the snow water equivalent hovering around average levels, the possibility for providing drought relief funds remains of high importance to Klamath County Commissioners, Siskiyou County board of supervisors, …
A stream restoration project on Fish Creek near Carey, which included the installation of about 35 woody structures and 14 beaver dam analogs in the creek last August, raised concerns about the timely delivery of water to downstream irrigators, officials said this week.
POCATELLO — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers and Congressman Mike Simpson announced a long-anticipated change to environmental regulations Thursday at Holt Arena amid a backdrop of tractors and combines for an agricultural equipment trade show.
Trace Bedke, longtime assistant manager for Butte Irrigation, has been selected as the Idaho Irrigation Equipment Association’s 2019 Person of the Year.
BOISE (AP) — Legislation granting an emergency water right when crews are trying to clean up spills in Idaho waterways headed to lawmakers in the House on Monday.
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Emergency crews pulling contaminated water from rivers after such things as tanker trunk crashes is standard cleanup practice in Idaho.
BOISE — Idaho’s snowpack status is still in the wait-and-see mode, experts said Friday.
Mountain snowpack levels throughout Idaho entered January well below normal, but irrigators can breathe a bit easier thanks to a recent turn toward wetter weather and strong reservoir carryover.
The region’s on-again, off-again drought could be off again in 2020 — that is, if the high snowpack levels recorded so far this winter continue as expected.
YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) — Washington’s snowpack is less than a year ago and officials say it’s similar to the start of 2015, the state’s last big drought.
BOISE — The Idaho Water Resource Board delivered a report to House Speaker Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, on Dec. 18, summarizing the significant progress that’s been made toward meeting or exceeding milestones necessary to rebuild the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer to long-term sustainable levels.
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Four federal hydroelectric dams along the Snake River in Washington state bring both benefits and liabilities to the region, and there is no clear consensus in the state on whether the giant structures should be removed or retained, a new report said.
