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.
Idaho Power Co. officials worry a state program working to reverse declining Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer levels has grown to the point that it could adversely affect winter hydro-power generation.
LEWISTON, Idaho (AP) — Steelhead outfitters and guides at an Idaho forum talked about solutions to the declining fish population that is hurting their businesses.
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Oregon’s Dungeness crab season is coming up, but there’s a problem looming over this fishery.
DRIGGS — Farmers who divert from the Teton River Basin hope a new aquifer recharge pilot program will bolster late-season flows in the system and extend their irrigation season.
COEUR D’ALENE (AP) — Idaho’s governor called for a third-party assessment of Lake Coeur d’Alene’s water quality as a tribe that owns a third of the lake backed out of a joint monitoring project, officials said.
HAMER — The staff at Circle Z Ag and Irrigation has come up with a creative take on displaying Christmas lights that’s been attracting attention in this small Eastern Idaho community.
BOISE (AP) — The U.S. Forest Service has agreed to complete environmental reviews of 20 water diversions in central Idaho that a conservation group says could be harming imperiled salmon.
BOISE (AP) — Fisheries managers are optimistic a program to save imperiled Snake River sockeye salmon is heading in the right direction despite few of the ocean-going fish making it back to central Idaho this year.
BOISE — The Idaho Water Resource Board heard a presentation from staff about potential locations for a large recharge basin in the upper portion of the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer region during a mid-November meeting.
BOISE — Gov. Brad Little’s Salmon Workgroup will meet in Boise on Nov. 19. The public meeting will be held at the Idaho Department of Fish and Game at 600 S. Walnut St. in Boise.
BOISE — Idaho has nearly met a long-term goal set in 2009 of minimizing its annual impact on the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer by 600,000 acre-feet, according to state water officials.
THE DALLES, Ore. (AP) — Two Pacific Northwest tribes on Monday demanded the removal of three major hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River to save migrating salmon and starving orcas and restore fishing sites that were guaranteed to the tribes in a treaty more than 150 years ago.
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — The Trump administration recently revoked an Obama-era regulation that shielded many U.S. wetlands and streams from pollution but was opposed by developers and farmers who said it hurt economic development and infringed on property rights.
Landowners and conservation professionals are excited about a new type of woody structure that mimics beaver dams. The benefits are similar — they store water, slow down runoff in streams and enhance fish and wildlife habitat.
REXBURG – The Idaho Water Resource Board approved 10 Flood-Management grants statewide for a total of $870,000 at its regular bimonthly meeting in Rexburg.
REXBURG — The Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer water level dropped slightly in the past year, but aquifer spring flows are showing a general upward trend overall, indicating that the aquifer is still rebounding as a result of wet winters, ESPA recharge flows, water reductions by ground water irri…
HAZELTON — Groundwater users in south-central and eastern Idaho are working to stave off water curtailment by the Idaho Department of Water Resources under a 4-year-old agreement to restore the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer and thereby end future water battles.
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Forest Service to consult with other federal agencies about nearly two dozen water diversion projects in central Idaho’s Sawtooth Valley that could be harming salmon, steelhead and bull trout.
Bureau of Reclamation officials are planning to do some maintenance and rehabilitation work on the American Falls Dam in the next two years.
SODA SPRINGS — J.R. Simplot Co. has rerouted a stream away from tainted waste rock and built a $30 million water treatment plant in its efforts to keep selenium out of the water supply near its Smoky Canyon Mine.
BOISE — Spending time outdoors is a hobby for many Idahoans, but for Ron Abramovich, it’s been a way of life. Abramovich is retiring from his post as a water supply specialist at the Natural Resources Conservation Service, an arm of the USDA, after 29 years as the go-to water supply expert.
RIGBY —The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has increased discharges through Jackson, Palisades, Island Park and American Falls Dams to exceed the current inflows.
MOUNT VERNON, Wash. — Despite snowstorms in Skagit County in early February and a flurry in March, there’s less snowpack than normal in the North Cascades.
LOGAN, Utah — Drip irrigation is a highly efficient irrigation method well suited to many fruit and vegetable row crops.
DESHLER, Neb. — Reinke Manufacturing has recognized Irrigation Systems in Blackfoot with a Gold Reinke Pride award in recognition of the company’s marketing year success. The dealership was honored during Reinke’s annual convention in Spokane, Wash.
KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. — Bureau of Reclamation’s Klamath Basin Area Office will deliver at least 322,000 acre feet of water — or a 92% allocation — rather than a full 350,000 from Upper Klamath Lake to the Klamath Project this summer and fall.
KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. — For those in Klamath Falls who cannot make it to the Oregon Water Resources Commission meeting on April 12 in Salem, the Oregon Water Resources Department has you covered.
KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. — The Klamath County commissioners entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Klamath River Renewal Corp. to address local construction and road and traffic concerns with KRRC’s proposal to remove four Klamath River dams.
LOGAN, Utah — Salts are naturally occurring, soluble minerals in areas where soil evaporation and plant water use (or transpiration) are both high and precipitation is low. In that scenario, dissolved minerals concentrate over time as the extraction of essentially pure water leaves the solub…
Gallatin County is gearing up for flood season in the wake of record-setting February snowfall and rising temperatures.
MOSCOW — It takes eight days for Richard Allen to get the selfies he wants.
LOS ANGELES — California is free of drought for the first time in more than seven years and only a small amount of its territory remains abnormally dry as a very wet winter winds down, experts said Thursday.
CHALLIS — February shaped up as one for the record books as far as snow totals in Idaho, according to a report from the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
SALEM, Ore. — After a slow start, wintry weather has walloped Oregon, with the snowpack surpassing the norm by as much as 160 percent in some parts of the state and Gov. Kate Brown declaring an emergency Feb. 28 in 10 counties.
CHALLIS —The varied January weather across Idaho is reflected in the state’s snowpack, the monthly water supply outlook report from the Natural Resources Conservation Service shows.
BEND, Ore. (AP) — Charles Cook and Suezan Hill-Cook didn’t think much of a medical marijuana growing operation when it set up shop next to their home near Redmond in 2015. Over the next few years, however, they and other neighbors grew increasingly frustrated with the noise, smells and traff…
LAKEVIEW, Ore. — It’s been nearly 15 years since Jed Freitas started installing water systems through his business Freitas Rangeland Improvements LLC. Since that time, Freitas has installed around 1,000 solar pumps on a yearly average of 65 pumps or so. His jobs range from just putting in th…
GRANGEVILLE (AP) — Officials say snowpack levels in northern Idaho and eastern Washington have improved over the last month, but both states could still be heading for an abnormally dry summer.
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Winter storms that dumped snow this month have helped Oregon’s snowpack recover after lower-than-normal measurements — a boon for farmers and ranchers who have endured dry conditions recently.
CHALLIS — Lost River Highway District officials want to form an exploratory committee to determine if people want to create a flood control tax district along the Big Lost River.
BOISE — Idaho Gov. Brad Little on Wednesday signed HB 1, the Treasure Valley water rights settlement bill, into law, and praised the collaborative process that brought all sides together on it.
BOISE (NRCS) — January’s weather varied across the state and that was reflected in changes in Idaho’s snowpack, according to the February Water Supply Outlook Report released by the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Idaho.
BOISE — Legislation to end years of litigation and help finalize a settlement agreement involving water rights in heavily populated southwestern Idaho is headed to the governor’s desk following a unanimous Senate vote on Tuesday.
With the reopening of the federal government, water talks among the so-called “Coalition of the Willing” are scheduled to resume Tuesday and Wednesday in Medford at the Bureau of Land Management Office.
BOISE — About $21 million in federal funds have been appropriated to Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington to help keep invasive quagga and zebra mussels out of state waters.
