Look at our water supplies

This is a picture of our water supply in Idaho as of September 24, 2007.

In case it's a bit hard to read, here are the numbers in the above chart:

Reservoirs
Lucky Peak: 30% full, capacity 264,400 acre feet
Arrowrock: 23% full, capacity 272,200 acre feet
Anderson Ranch: 18% full, capacity 413,100 acre feet
Cascade: 52% full, capacity 646,460 acre feet
Lake Lowell: 49% full, capacity 119,400 acre feet
Deadwood: 25% full, capacity 161,900 acre feet

The raging issue at the moment is control of water at the Lucky Peak reservoir, because that is the source for the water that flows in the Boise River during the winter.

A panel of experts is scheduled to speak on the topic tonight at the Garden City Hall. The program is sponsored by Idaho Rivers United and the Garden City Library.

I plan to be there.

Selenium

A water war is stirring in our state over selenium coming into the water supply from phosphate mining in southeast Idaho.

Phosphate is used in fertilizer and animal feed, and selenium is a mineral we need in tiny quantities for optimal health.

The problem is that too much selenium can be lethal. Six horses and more than 550 sheep in Idaho have died from grazing in forage laced with selenium, and researchers blame selenium for die-offs of salamander, deformed embryos of coot and Canada geese, and the death of beaver, cranes, and pelicans. Fish are absent from two streams in Caribou County, where most of the phosphate mining takes place in Idaho and the location of Grays Lake National Wildlife Refuge.

The war has two fronts. First is the war to stir up some action on the part of the government to deal with selenium pollution, which has been documented for years, and to enforce cleanup of past pollution messes related to mining. The second is to prevent the Simplot company from enlarging their Smoky Canyon phosphate mine near the Idaho-Wyoming border.

Read more: "Environmentalist say feds colluded with phosphate companies to cover up pollution," Salt Lake Tribune.

And this: Facts about selenium. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

What is an aquifer?

Good question. Aquifers are buried sources of water. I like to think of aquifers as "rivers beneath the desert," because that's how they function: bodies of water that move like streams and rivers under the ground.

The United States Geological Service (USGS) defines an aquifer as "A zone of material capable of supplying ground water at a useful rate from a well."

There are aquifers in Africa, Asia, Europe and probably every body of land on earth. In the United States about 60 aquifers have been identified as "principal aquifers" by the USGS. They are located in every region of the U.S.

Major aquifers located entirely or partly in Idaho (links are to USGS maps):

Northern Rocky Mountain Intermontane Basins Regional Acquifer System

Snake River Plain basaltic-rock aquifers

Snake River Plain basin-fill aquifers

Here's a great report on USGS studies of 24 aquifers in the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s. On the opening page are links to--

The Ground Water Atlas of the United States by the USGS

Aquifer basics by type of rock filter, by the USGS

JG

Copyright (c) by Joyce Griffith

My mind is starting to turn...

I had a brief email exchange today with the public information office for the Idaho Department of Water Resources.

As a result, I have decided to put a package together that will describe my communications efforts, make a pitch for a combined newsletter by private groups concerned about Idaho's water, invite participation in my IdahoWaterInfo.com site, and generally send out the message that I am interested in Idaho's water and am willing to volunteer as much time as I can scrape together to share what I learn. I will hand deliver the package and send it as an PDF attachment to an email as well. I'll post the address so that anyone can take a look.

My only credentials: I'm a native Idahoan, and I care.

Water organizations in Idaho

Here are some of the organizations involved in water for Idaho:

Government:

• Idaho Department of Water Resources, "Serving the Citizens of Idaho Since 1895"
• Idaho Water Science Center. Service of the United States Geological Survey (USGS)
• Water Quality Division, Idaho Department of Environmental Quality. "Assures that the state's surface, ground, and drinking water resources meet state water quality standards..."
• Natural Resources Conservation Service." Department of Agriculture. Provides "leadership in a partnership effort to help people conserve, maintain, and improve our natural resources and environment.

Educational:

• Idaho Water Resources Research Institute, University of Idaho
• Graduate classes in hydrogeology and related topics for civil engineering. Boise State University, Civil Engineering Dept.
• Hydrologic Science Graduate Program. "Designed to meet the educational requirements for certification by the American Institute of Hydrology.
  

Private:

• The Snake River Alliance, "Idaho's Nuclear Watchdog and Clean Energy Advocate"
• Idaho Water Users Association. Purpose is to "promote, aid, and assist in the development, control, conservation, preservation, and utilization of the water resources for the State of Idaho." Established 1938.
• United Water Idaho. Supplier of "safe, high quality drinking water" from surface sources and ground water.
• Idaho Rural Water Association. "a non-profit organization that provides training and technical assistance to water and wastewater communities and systems throughout Idaho."
• Idaho Ground Water Association. "[A]ssists, promotes, encourages, and supports the interests and welfare of the ground water industry within the State of Idaho."
• The Coalition for Idaho Water. Membership of "more than 50 groups, representing Idaho irrigation, agricultural, and business interests and Idaho cities and counties. The Coalition is united in its determination to safeguard the sovereignty of Idaho's water."

e. coli in our water

One virus we all know by name is e. coli, a virus that lives happily in the intestines of animals but manages to make people seriously ill when it travels by way of animal feces into our bodies. The "e" in "e. coli" stands for Escherichia.

Since last Friday people living in the 450-resident town of Melba, Idaho, have been boiling their water to avoid getting sick from e. coli. The virus has been found in drinking water for the city at unacceptable levels.

The question of the day is this: Since sand, rocks, and other objects in the ground filter and cleanse water beneath the surface, can e. coli appear in wells and other underground sources of water?

Do aquifers provide sufficient filtering to protect us from e. coli? The short answer is "No." The virus has been found in well water and ground water as well as in surface water.

If you'd like to know more, just enter the following words in your favorite search engine and browse some of the information that surfaces: aquifers filter protection e. coli.

Let me know what you learn!

jg

Underground water keeps us alive

About Aquifers

When I was growing up in southern Idaho several decades ago, I don't remember hearing the word, "aquifer." Today it's a household word in every corner of this three-sided state and in many other parts of the country.

An aquifer, I have learned, is a large piece of land that contains water beneath its surface. Apparently the word was invented about 1901 by combining two Latin words, aqua (water) and fer (carry or bear). That's not important except to make a point that we haven't been talking about aquifers forever.

Without a huge underground source of water from our aquifers in Idaho, most of us would be living in a desert so dry and barren that life couldn't be sustained there. (I guess we wouldn't be living at all in that case.) Anyway, thanks to aquifers, all of us in Idaho have access to plenty of drinking water and more than 1.3 billion acres of irrigation water for agriculture and industry. We measure water two different ways. If it's moving, we measure water by its speed in cubic feet per second (cfs). If it's resting on the surface of being held underground in an aquifer it is measured in acre feet (af). One cubic foot of water contains just under 7.5 gallons (7.4805). One acre foot of water contains 325,851 gallons of water.

While people in Idaho have been utilizing ground water for decades, some people who live in extremely dry conditions are totally unaware that beneath their feet is abundance of fresh, clean water. In the dry Judean desert of Israel, for example, water is transported hundreds of miles by commercial carrier while its rain-fed aquifers beneath the surface hold an average of 100 million cubic meters of water. Only about twenty percent of its groundwater water is used.

Do you believe the underground supply of fresh water for Idaho is in jeopardy? How much water do we need? How do we use it? Should the government be doing more to provide fresh water for our crops and families?

Let us hear from you.