Snowpack

With water levels in Idaho’s reservoirs well below normal last fall, irrigators entered this winter hoping for above-average snowpack in order to ensure a reliable supply of water for the 2022 growing season.

That has not happened. In fact, snowpack levels are well below normal in most basins and Idaho’s 2022 water supply outlook doesn’t look very rosy at the moment.

“It’s looking like it’s going to be a pretty tight water situation this year,” said Bob Carter, manager of the Boise Project Board of Control, which provides water to five irrigation districts in southwestern Idaho.    

On the other side of the state, Tony Olenichak, watermaster of Water District 1, the state’s largest, isn’t feeling any more optimistic about this year’s water supply outlook.

“It looks like it’s going to be a tight water year,” he said.

Water District 1, which feeds the upper Snake River system, is Idaho’s most important in terms of providing irrigation water to farmers and provides enough water to irrigate well over 1 million acres of crop land.

The plentiful rainfall that soaked many parts of Idaho last fall has helped soil moisture levels but it’s snow that fills the state’s reservoir systems and those reservoirs provide critical irrigation water to farmers, ranchers and other irrigators during the dry, hot summer months.