BOISE, Idaho — It is a sign that spring has truly arrived in the Treasure Valley. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has started releasing water from Lucky Peak Reservoir as part of their flood risk management plan.
- The annual flood risk management release keeps everyone safe downstream
- The Boise River between Lucky Peak and Diversion Dam acts as a pool during early release
- Boise Board of Control puts the water into the New York canal and then the irrigation districts will start to meet your neighborhood irrigation demands
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
When I stand looking at the flow of water at the Diversion Dam I truly am amazed. When you start talking about the annual release from Lucky Peak Reservoir there is plenty of the “wow” factor. There wouldn’t be a Treasure Valley as we know it, if visionaries didn’t come up with the three-reservoir system, and hundreds of miles of canals feeding the thousands of acres of land.
“With the water coming down, we want to make sure that we're keeping Boise, and Treasure Valley safe. Christopher Silbernagel is the Operation Project Manager for Lucky Peak Reservoir and says to keep everyone downstream safe they have their annual flood risk management release. “We have a team up in Walla Walla whose sole mission is to watch the snowpack whether it’s visual and we have instrumentation to measure that snow, water equivalent so per foot of snow you have this much water coming from it they’re watching that on a daily basis.”
The water is released into the Boise River which is referred to as a pool, a space that can start holding large amounts of water. Ryan Hedrick with the Bureau of Reclamation explains. “This pool is normally empty during the non-irrigation season and when we start our flood risk management we fill this pool up which allows the New York canal to run water or we can release water downstream like we’re doing today. Besides the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation, the partnership includes the Boise Board of Control and the irrigation companies.
Hedrick explains the relationship. “So, the Boise Board of Control puts the water into the New York canal and then the irrigation districts will start at different times off of that in order to meet your neighborhood irrigation demands.”
Those demands are high as water is worth its weight and gold. And it all starts with a good snowpack in the mountains.
