How much water does Idaho have?

The latest water supply report issued by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, which is part of the US Department of Agriculture, is dated June of 2008. That was a long time ago, and the weather can change quickly. In those days, officials were concerned about cool spring temperatures and below-average rainfall.

The Idaho Department of Water Resources provides comprehensive data from a dozen or so government agencies about water, snow, runoff, drought, and other water-related conditions in Idaho. Some of the links do not work, and most of them take you out of the IDWR pages, but the information is valuable. For one thing, it gives you a link list to just about every agency related to water in Idaho.

If you’d like to know about the state of drinking water in Idaho, United Water Idaho has fascinating information about how they treat water from wells in the Boise area and from the Boise River.

—provided by Griffith Publishing

Let’s talk about Idaho’s water resources

This Friday, October 24, is the deadline to qualify for a discount when you register for the 25th annual Water Law and Resource Issues Seminar November 6-7 at the Doubletree-Riverside in Boise. The agenda for the seminar includes the following:

Shoshone-Bannock Counties and the Clean Water Act

The Latest in Water Right Takings Litigation

Life as an Administrative Hearing Officer

The Domestic Exemption: Is its End Coming Soon?

Dam Busters vs Best Available Science

Proposed Changes to ESA Consultation Regulations

ESA Salmon Litigation Update

Snake River Wild & Scenic Legislation

Boise River SRBA Decision

Transfer and Permit Applications: What’s New?

Is Recovery Possible Under Current Harvest Practices?

Proposed Changes to Modernize Idaho Water Law

Sustainable Development: When Do We Know that Enough Is Enough?

Ethics and the Water Lawyer

The seminar is presented by the Water Law Section of the Idaho State Bar. Participants include attorneys, government officials, and private water user organizations.

Interested? Call 208 343-1871

This message is brought to you as a public service at no cost or obligation to you by Griffith Publishing.

The Clean Water Act is not to be ignored

The above picture shows an extreme example (not in Idaho) of the harmful collection of water polluted by construction when no drainage system as required by the CWA was provided.

Businesses operating at three construction sites in Nampa are finding out that the Clean Water Act is being enforced in Idaho. Sites affected by $21,800 in fines levied by the EPA for the violations are as follows:

1. Dan Kropf Construction site, SC Construction
2. 65 K #2 Building, Ronald W. Van Auker Inc.
3. Empire Business Park, Freund Spencer, Knife River

An EPA press release states  that EPA inspectors checked construction sites and observed violations of the nationwide Construction General Permit, which is part of the CWA National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, (NPDES). Inspectors found violations for failing to apply for the required storm water permit, failing to conduct self-inspection, and failing to install and maintain erosion and sediment controls. 

Rain and other storms can drench a construction site. Even a fairly small storm can create rivers and pools of water laced with oil and grease as well as water with a high pH (alkaline) content in the runoff from concrete at the site.

Water spilling into the streets and gutters near a construction site is polluted water. The EPA warns that after a storm, the water polluted by sedimention, chemicals, and stormwater runoff can harm or kill fish and other wildlife. Sedimentation can destroy aquatic habitat and high volumes of runoff can cause stream bank erosion. Debris can clog waterways and potentially reach the ocean where it can kill marine wildlife and impact habitat.

These pollutants “go with the flow” and end up in the city’s water system unless precautions are taken by the construction operators to handle storm water.  

The Clean Water Act requires all construction projects to obtain a permit proving compliance with EPA rules regarding the control and disposal of storm water.

If you are involved in any way in new construction, be sure to check out information provided by the EPA explaining the provisions. In general, if your construction site covers more than one acre, you are required to obtain a permit for discharge of storm water from the site. You need to develop a storm water plan for making sure polluted water is contained on site and does not flow into ditches, rivers, or other water flowing to municipal and state water sources.

The law is a nuisance in the minds of some construction operators in a hurry to get the job done. The public knows better. Any time laws are made to improve the quality of water in Idaho, they are worth following and enforcing.  

Presented as a public service of Griffith Publishing. No cost or obligation is required or implied.

When you have a well at home

I have a well in my house in space beneath the old house and my garage, totally enclosed from the outdoors and powered by my own pump. I’ve never used well water for drinking because the people who rented this place for a short time after my parents died got sick and claimed it was because of polluted water.

For years I bought drinking water at the grocery store or boiled my own. It was nice having all my other water, for bathroom use and watering the lawn, from my well. Except for electricity running the pump, it was free, or I considered it so. Now I pay $12 or so for city water and run it through a filter for drinking water. I am also paying several hundred dollars to set up the city line from my house all the way to the sidewalk running next to my property. But I’m glad to have drinking water quality at every faucet in the house.

And glad to have my well for all of my outdoor needs.

So are thousands of other Idaho folks. Apparently nobody knows how many. The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, DEQ, just says “many,” and the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, says that 15 percent of Americans rely on private drinking water supplies, but doesn’t give data for Idaho. The Idaho Department of Water Resources, IDWR, offers datasets with ESRA shape-file, whatever that might be. It was easier to find out that Idaho had one oil well in 1963, an unsuccessful one. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is concerned about nitrates and arsenic in our drinking water.

One of my favorite agencies, the US Geological Survey (USGS), states that southern Idaho boasts 1,300 wells, and they provide irrigation water as well as drinking water. The water, the USGS adds, comes from our state’s generous aquefer, an underground river of water that is the envy of most other states. I called the USGS and spoke briefly with Annette Campbell, who told me that the agency most likely to have those statistics was the Idaho Department of Water Resources.

Chad at the IDWR told me that was a logical assumption. He talked to me for several minutes about water issues from the agency’s perspective. They issue permits for wells, he said, so they “should” know how many wells there are. The problem is that there are wells that have been working for years before permits were required. And they don’t keep track of permits by region, although it wouldn’t be that hard to derive that information from the raw data. IDWR’s concern is the construction of wells and the permitting process, not the quality of the water. That’s up to the DEQ.

The short answer is that nobody knows how many wells we have in Idaho. IDWR could tell me how many permits they’ve issued year by year since 1955, but I’m not sure how readily available that number isI did learn from Chad that there is no limit on digging wells for water in Idaho. Anybody can dig a well on privately owned property and use the water for any purpose. You don’t need a permit unless you’re using more than 13,000 gallons of water a day, and then you need a permit for 1/2 acre or more of irrigating and other use. You don’t have to check the well for water quality.

Arsenic in Idaho’s drinking water

The arsenic in Idaho probably comes from volcanic activity through the ages, but when it settles in our drinking water and raises warning flags about increased risk of cancer and other diseases, we pay attention.

Officials for Kuna, Idaho, have shut down one of the city’s main water wells because it was found to have more than the amount of arsenic allowed by the EPA for drinking water. A fact sheet by the EPA explains the reasons for a higher standard of arsenic in drinking water, from 50 parts per billion in 1975 to 10 parts per billion in a recent action.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) summarizes how arsenic affects the human body, and Amethyst Galleries gives an interesting description of where this chemical comes from and how it reacts with other chemicals. If there’s an inquisitive student inside you, pay a visit to WebElements and see what they have to say about arsenic.

Enough water in Idaho? That depends…

Looking good…the water supply picture for Idaho this year.

Plenty of snow in the mountains. Cool enough to keep snow from melting too fast and flooding the valleys.

A few hot days in May could change the picture, but for now it looks good. Check out the complete report by the NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) of the Department of Agriculture.

Water rights judge Schroeder’s recommendations

You can find the complete speech containing former chief justice Gerald Schroeder’s recommendations for harmony among Idaho’s water users. Unfortunately, there is no summary or list of recommendations, but it’s all there!

Water fights are for kids with squirt guns

Maybe we can stop fighting about water in Idaho. There is a real possibility.

Last week former Idaho Supreme Court Justice Gerald Schroeder delivered a set of recommendations to resolve or at least move closer to resolving bitter fights about who owns Idaho’s water and what they can do with it.

Surface water users who draw water from rivers and streams and ground water users who pump it to the surface with wells never see the water situation in quite the same way. After all, water is water. If I dig a well in my back yard and find water, I can use it any way I wish, right? Or if a stream runs through my property, nobody can stop me from irrigating my pasture with it, right?

But what if there isn’t enough water to go around?

In a drought, pumpers in Southern Idaho can deplete the store of underground water known as the East Snake Plain Aquifer that helps keep streams and rivers flowing. When the aquifers start drying up, big users of irrigation water don’t have enough water to keep their crops and livestock healthy.

Sounds like doomsday talk, but Schroeder doesn’t believe Idaho is running out of water. We just need to be more careful about how we use water that is available. It used to be assumed that well digging could continue without restriction. Now that we know the effect that pumping can have on the supply of surface water and in the eventual turn of the global water wheel, steps are being taken to develop a better system of pricing, regulating, and testing our water.

I think too many newspapers try to keep people away from their news. Thank you, Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and many others for letting me read your news whenever I need to. Anyway, I can’t give you a good link to the May 6 editorial in the Idaho Press Tribune or to the Idaho Falls Post Register that presented editorial text on Schroeder’s recommendations. The Magic Valley Times-News does offer free links to news coverage on this topic and even posts the name of the reporter, Nate Poppino, and his email address (npoppino@magicvalley.com.)

And, here’s a link to an Legal Newsline story covering the retirement last summer of the former Idaho Chief Justice, Gerald Schroeder. A native Idahoan who has specialized in water rights and water litigation throughout his career, Schroder continues to play an active role helping the public understand water issue. (By the way, this is not the Gerald Schroeder who is the author of books such as The Hidden Face of God and Genesis and the Big Bang.)

(This blog is from Griffith Publishing)

Why worry about a little bit of water pollution?

Maybe you find it as ironic as I do that our former governor, Dirk Kempthorne, cut the budget for improving Idaho’s environment three times in his four-plus years before rising to the heights as a cabinet member for the U.S. Department of the Interior. That’s the federal department whose main responsibility is the conservation of our country’s natural resources.

I’m no scientist, but those who are tell me that water goes through a huge cycle, from rain to wells to oceans and rivers, to our food and drinks to raw sewer, and back to the clouds of the air. I’ve heard that we’re consuming the same water that was satisfying thirst as long as there have been human beings on the face of the earth.

Thaw a chunk of ice next time you’re in Alaska and you might come down with a pre-historic virus if you drink the cold run-off from ages ago.

The reality is that we don’t drink “pure” water. There are microscopic bits of “stuff” in the water we drink, things like the remains of the shells of sea creatures or deadly chemicals like arsenic or cyanide. Because we can measure these substances down to 1 or 2 parts per million, we can give a frightening list of harmful “stuff” in the water we drink. That’s why our water is treated by the city to purify it and keep the worst “stuff” out.

Sometimes poisons or disease-causing items do get through and make us sick. The government doesn’t like this to happen, and neither do the citizens of this country.

More on this later. Meanwhile, how about a glass of treated, filtered, “natural” water from your special dispenser?

Berms or not, it’s a flood plain in Canyon County

The consensus among water experts seems to be that the part of Idaho I call home is an eternal desert, treated now and then to a decent rainfall and usually delivering enough snow in the mountains to irrigate our parched land and grow crops.

We’ve been officially in a drought for years, and any concern about the quantity of water in Southwest Idaho was that we didn’t have enough.

Until this year. Heavy snowfall both in the valley and in the mountains. More predicted for the week end. Now we’re talking about possible flooding.  As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, we have a very high water table in this part of the state, especially west and south of Caldwell where you can hit water at five or six feet or less when drilling a new well.

Apparently it has been a whispered secret that the City of Caldwell is sitting on top of so much water that the city put up a flood-mitigation berm at the 9th hole of the city golf course, according to my source, Paul Allredge, former chair of the city’s planning & zoning commission and Caldwell’s unofficial guardian.

It was pure coincidence that this week new maps drawn by FEMA showing a much broader area at risk of flooding was released to the community. Since Caldwell was built along the Indian Creek tributary to the Boise River, the new map affects this city and could sink the city’s plans for revitalization of downtown Caldwell. To all of this, Caldwell Mayor Garrett Nancoles calmly informed Jamie Huff, FEMA spokesperson who delivered the presentation this week, “What you are about to present will scare the holy, whatever, out of Nampa and Caldwell.” This is according to Kendet Murrant and Byran Dooley, reporters for the Idaho Press Tribune.

I don’t know who’s scared, but if I understand rules about waterway construction correctly, the new maps pretty much shut down the mayor’s dream of a beautiful downtown area on Indian Creek because federal law does not allow new construction or substantial building repairs in the floodplain.

JG