Boise City Canal turns off water 6 weeks early — earliest cutoff in 155-year history
If you get irrigation water from the Boise City Canal, listen up.
The canal was shutting down effective Tuesday because of low water in the Boise River, according to a news release from the Boise City Canal Company. The cutoff arrived roughly six weeks earlier than usual, as the canal company’s website lists its irrigation season as normally starting April 15 and ending Oct. 15.
The early closing affects roughly 1,200 stakeholders who use the canal for irrigation. Alan Winkle, board president for the canal company, said in an email to the Idaho Statesman that both Boise residents and some city parks use the canal’s water.
“We have tried to stretch our water allocation and conserve as much as possible, but when our priority date comes up, we are forced to close our headgate and cease water deliveries,” said Mike Harrison, canal manager, in a news release.
The Warm Springs and Quail Hollow golf courses also rely on the canal, according to Doug Holloway, director of Boise Parks and Recreation. Both sites have surface water options and access to well water irrigation, which officials hope “will be adequate to see us through the end of the season,” Holloway told the Statesman in an email.
Holloway said most Boise parks also have ponds that can be used once irrigation season ends.
“Other sites that rely on our irrigation water rights and don’t have surface water options will most likely suffer with some dry, brown conditions ... unfortunately,” Holloway said via email.
Winkle said in the release that closing the canal this early is unprecedented. The canal has one of the oldest water rights on the Boise River, dating to June 1866.
“To my knowledge we have never experienced a shut-off this early before,” Winkle said in the release.
Starting near the Warm Springs Golf Course below Goodwin Dam in Southeast Boise, the canal runs to the northwest through backyards of homes, according to the canal company’s website. The canal goes underground through downtown Boise before resurfacing near 19th and Ada streets. It then ends near Collister Drive and Hill Road, where it drains into the Farmers Union Canal.
The canal company is encouraging everyone who normally uses the canal to conserve water as much as possible and use alternative water resources responsibly.
This Boise canal is just the latest resource to close down early after Idaho’s particularly hot, dry summer.
This story was originally published September 7, 2021 at 3:35 PM.
