Leaks in the Tyhee Siphon!
Over in Tyhee, Idaho there’s a one mile irrigation siphon that’s leaking badly. It will have a disastrous effect on the whole rural community if it completely fails. The folks there have let authorities know they’re extremely concerned. Let’s listen to Russell Johnson, Chairman of the Fort Hall Water Users Board explain. “It’s an underground siphon that was put in in 1907 and in 1948 it started to leak bad enough that they went in and they lined it with ¼” steel liner and it’s worked pretty good up to about 1980.
In 1980, the Bureau of Indian Affairs had a study done on it and it says right here in the report that it’s starting to leak, they could see right where it was starting to fail. They said then, we better come up with some money to replace this thing. Nothin’ went on and nothin’ went on, I think it was in ’98, they actually shut the siphon off because it started to bubble up in the middle of the road right down by U.S. Highway 91. It settled the county road and put a big dip in it. After that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers come in and did a study. It says right there the pipe is in bad shape and it needs to be replaced.
