SALEM, Ore. (AP) — On the same day last week that a southern Oregon county declared a state of emergency amid a sharp increase in illegal cannabis farms, police raided a site that had about 2 tons of processed marijuana and 17,500 pot plants.
Tremonton City’s secondary water system was shut off a month earlier than usual as an extended drought continues to strain local water supplies.
Dawn breaks on the northern end of Priest Lake on a quiet July morning, casting a golden glow on the water.
When it comes to running a soil and water conservation district in the state of Idaho, administrative support staff are the vital people who coordinate projects, keep the books and generally serve as the glue holding district business together.
BLACKFOOT — Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, returned to his home base last Wednesday and touted the Columbia Basin Initiative in a lunchtime appearance in front of members of the Greater Blackfoot Area Chamber of Commerce.
The Idaho Water Resource Board is taking the initial steps toward expanding its longstanding cloud seeding program into new areas of the state.
The Idaho Water Resource Board plans to wrap up $5 million in upgrades this winter to infrastructure at Priest Lake to better regulate water levels there.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The effects of the drought and heat on trees won’t be fully known until next spring, tree experts in Oregon say.
MULESHOE, Texas (AP) — Tim Black‘s cell phone dings, signaling the time to reverse sprinklers spitting water across a pie-shaped section of grass that will provide pasture for his cattle.
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to take immediate action to improve fish passage at dams in Oregon’s Willamette Basin.
The Nez Perce Tribe recently reached a settlement agreement with the state of Oregon resolving the Tribe’s lawsuit alleging that Oregon’s 2019 Clean Water Act section 401 water quality certification for the relicensing of the Hells Canyon Complex violated federal and state law. The Tribe cla…
SARATOGA, Wyo. (AP) — The North Platte River in southern Wyoming has been so low in places lately that a toddler could easily wade across and thick mats of olive-green algae grow in the lazy current.
The Idaho Water Resource Board has concluded its study of three options for creating a large-scale managed aquifer recharge site in the Upper Snake River Valley, and officials acknowledge cost estimates have come back higher than hoped.
SITES, Calif. (AP) — In 2014, in the middle of a severe drought that would test California’s complex water storage system like never before, voters told the state to borrow $7.5 billion and use part of it to build projects to stockpile more water.
This year’s drought in Idaho is not unprecedented but it is one of the state’s driest years on record.
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — The U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday announced a new kind of climate observatory near the headwaters of the Colorado River that will help scientists better predict rain and snowfall in the U.S. West and determine how much of it will flow through the region.
GREELEY, Colo. (AP) — “Go West, young man,’’ Horace Greeley famously urged.
Harvest season is underway across the northwest, and farmers in some areas are seeing smaller spuds and onions because of excessive heat earlier this summer.
CASA GRANDE, Ariz. (AP) — A harvester rumbles through the fields in the early morning light, mowing down rows of corn and chopping up ears, husks and stalks into mulch for feed at a local dairy.
FIREBAUGH, Calif. (AP) — As temperatures recently reached triple digits, farmer Joe Del Bosque inspected the almonds in his parched orchard in California’s agriculture-rich San Joaquin Valley, where a deepening drought threatens one of the state’s most profitable crops.
WASHINGTON — Included in the sweeping $1 trillion infrastructure bill approved by the Senate is funding for Western water projects that farmers, water providers and environmentalists say are badly needed across the parched region.
When Roby Roberts first started working for the Yellowstone Ecological Research Center, he was surprised by the amount of water monitoring data that is available but not shared between organizations and agencies.
The Spiral Jetty remained submerged under the surface of the Great Salt Lake and out of sight for more than 20 years not long after it was built in 1970.
Thick smoke that held down winds and temperatures in the zone of the largest single wildfire in California history cleared Monday from scenic forestlands, allowing firefighting aircraft to rejoin the battle to contain the massive Dixie Fire.
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — An emergency trap-and-truck operation of Idaho-bound endangered sockeye salmon because of high water temperatures in the Snake and Salmon rivers netted enough fish at an eastern Washington dam to sustain an elaborate hatchery program, wildlife officials said Tuesday.
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho is facing unprecedented drought despite getting normal snow levels last winter, and water managers warn the state could be entering a dry spell that may last for years.
LEWISTON, Idaho (AP) — A large timber sale in north-central Idaho has been put on hold because a federal judge says the agencies that approved the deal failed to consider the latest information on steelhead numbers.
Just a couple of weeks ago, Blackfoot rancher Dennis Lake anticipated his cattle would have to make an early exit from their water-starved range before the end of this month or by early September at the latest.
SAN FRANCISCO — Baby salmon are dying by the thousands in one California river, and an entire run of endangered salmon could be wiped out in another. Fishermen who make their living off adult salmon, once they enter the Pacific Ocean, are sounding the alarm as blistering heat waves and exten…
TWIN FALLS — The Magic Valley and other areas in southern Idaho experienced record-breaking rainfall over the weekend, the National Weather Service in Boise says.
Idaho Speaker of the House Scott Bedke has proposed using federal funding made available through the American Rescue Plan to bolster the state’s aquifer recharge efforts.
The Idaho Water Resource Board approved 10 flood-management grants statewide totaling $980,936, while also receiving an annual update about Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer volumes, spring discharge to the Snake River and accomplishments made by Idaho ground water users to reduce pumping from the…
BOISE — The director of the Idaho Department of Water Resources has issued a updated mid-season methodology order for Snake River groundwater users, predicting a 170,500 acre-foot shortfall to senior priority surface water users in the Eastern Snake River Plain region in the 2021 irrigation season.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — To ensure farmers and ranchers have access to modern and safe water infrastructure systems, U.S. Sens. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, and Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, member of the Senate Finance Committee, have introduced the Water and…
As a lifelong farmer and the chairman of the Idaho Water Resource Board, it’s been amazing to watch our state’s potential 2021 water supplies diminish from what was shaping up to be a comparatively decent winter with near-average snowpack in most areas of the state to a bone-dry spring.
“As far as I can remember, this is the driest it’s been at this time of year."
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday asked people and businesses in the nation’s most populous state to voluntarily cut how much water they use by 15% as the Western United States weathers a drought that is rapidly emptying reservoirs relied on for agriculture, …
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho Power customers in southern Idaho and eastern Oregon used a record amount of electricity last week, the company said.
JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) — For Sue Mills, it was simultaneously concerning and reassuring for her staff to find a quagga mussel attached to a boat that was about to hit the water in Yellowstone National Park.
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — For thousands of years, an Arizona tribe relied on the Colorado River’s natural flooding patterns to farm. Later, it hand-dug ditches and canals to route water to fields.
Brian Olmstead has seen it all during his 21 years with the Twin Falls Canal Co. — droughts, a 100-year-storm, devastating winter floods and, yes, a few “normal” years too.
LEWISTON, Idaho (AP) — Sockeye salmon at risk from high water temperatures will be captured at an eastern Washington dam to save as many of the endangered fish headed for Idaho as possible, wildlife managers said.
TULELAKE, Calif. (AP) — Ben DuVal knelt in a barren field near the California-Oregon state line and scooped up a handful of parched soil as dust devils whirled around him and birds flitted between empty irrigation pipes.
Over the last 25 years, when there’s been a major water conflict on the vast Snake River Plain, Lynn Tominaga has been there defending farmers, ranchers, big dairies and major businesses like Anheuser- Busch, McCain Foods and Jerome Cheese through his leadership as executive director of the …
LEWISTON, Idaho (AP) — Authorities have started releasing cold water from a northern Idaho dam to keep Snake River water temperatures cool to help migrating salmon and steelhead.
BOISE — Gary Spackman, director of the Idaho Department of Water Resources, issued a curtailment order today to approximately 140 entities that own about 310 groundwater rights in the Bellevue Triangle area in the lower Wood River Valley.
SEATTLE (AP) — The hottest day of an unprecedented and dangerous heat wave scorched the Pacific Northwest on Monday, with temperatures obliterating records that had been set just the day before.
Amid the flood of data being used to report current drought conditions in Utah comes a statistic of particular note to Cache Valley residents: The Logan River is at its lowest level for this time of year since 1992, during Utah’s second-worst recorded drought.
TWIN FALLS — Drought conditions in south-central Idaho have forced an administrative proceeding in Boise over water rights, the early closure of Magic Reservoir and a fish salvage.
LEWISTON — American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall visited the Gem State recently to tour one of four dams proposed to be removed as part of a plan backed by Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, to benefit endangered salmon.
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (AP) — Water managers are cutting off irrigation flows to farmers in Idaho’s Wood River basin and wildlife officials are scrambling to move fish to safer waters as a severe drought grips the area.
Raised on a Rupert farm, Lynn Tominaga has devoted his career to helping farmers throughout the Eastern Snake Plain maintain their access to a crucial and uncertain agricultural input — an adequate water supply.
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — A drought is forcing Oregon to consider major changes this summer to everything from how it stocks trout in lakes and reservoirs across the state to when it will release some species of fish from hatcheries.
American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall will join other national farm industry leaders June 15-16 at the Port of Lewiston for an informational tour highlighting the importance of the lower four Snake River dams and the entire Columbia-Snake River system.
To commemorate the 45th anniversary of the Teton Dam Disaster, Museum of Rexburg workers have created an “escape room” where visitors can flee the disaster while also helping communities threatened by the flood.
