Federal office in Boise stewards Idaho water, hydropower. Under Trump, it might lose lease
Congressional Democrats released a list of 164 U.S. Department of the Interior offices that could be slated for closure across multiple states in roughly the next 18 months. On the list is Boise’s Bureau of Reclamation building, a regional office tasked with stewarding water resources in Idaho, Washington, and parts of Oregon, Montana and Wyoming.
The office lease would be terminated on June 30, according to the list published Friday by Democratic representatives on the U.S. House Natural Resources committee.
According to Mary Hurrell, communications director for the committee’s ranking member, Rep. Jared Huffman, D-California, the list came from the General Services Administration.
The GSA is a federal agency that manages federal offices and property. The Associated Press reported last month that Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency have homed in on access to the GSA and that lease terminations were identified as a priority.
Hurrell told the Idaho Statesman in an email that the GSA list was sent in a letter to the Interior Department, which includes the Bureau of Reclamation, and came to the Natural Resources committee “through a whistleblower.” Hurrell said the committee was able to verify the list’s veracity.
The Boise Bureau of Reclamation office is located at 1150 N. Curtis Road on the Boise Bench. It serves the Columbia River Basin, which includes tributaries such as the Snake and Boise rivers.
According to its website, the regional office manages water resources for irrigation and power generation from 54 reservoirs and delivers water to 175 irrigation districts. More than 72 dams and related structures support this water delivery, the website says.
In the Boise area, Bureau of Reclamation-operated dams include the Anderson Ranch Dam, Arrowrock Dam, Boise River Diversion dam, Deer Flat dams, Black Canyon Diversion dam, Cascade dam, and the Deadwood dam.
Three of those dams — Anderson Ranch, Black Canyon and Boise River — generate roughly 225 million kilowatts of electricity a year, according to the Bureau of Reclamation.
Boise office declines comment
Communications staff from the regional office in Boise declined to comment on whether the office’s lease was slated to be terminated. Jill Youmans, a public affairs officer for the office, directed the Statesman to the Interior Department.
A department spokesperson declined to comment on the status of specific offices or personnel but told the Statesman in an email that the department and the Bureau of Reclamation “are committed to upholding federal responsibilities to communities and tribes.”
“We are working with GSA to ensure facilities will be available for the continued delivery of Reclamation’s services,” the email said.
A department spokesperson told the Statesman by phone that the department would “notify the public if we are going to make permanent changes.”
A spokesperson for the GSA declined to confirm if the Boise office was indeed on the chopping block for lease termination.
“GSA is reviewing all options to optimize our footprint and building utilization,” the spokesperson wrote in an email to the Statesman.
“A component of our space consolidation plan will be the termination of many soft term leases,” the email said. “To the extent these terminations affect public facing facilities and/or existing tenants, we are working with our agency partners to secure suitable alternative space. In many cases this will allow us to increase space utilization and obtain improved terms.”
The press release from Natural Resources Committee Democrats noted that Idaho stands to lose 85,543 square feet of Interior Department office space, according to the lease termination list.
This story was originally published March 3, 2025 at 4:09 PM.
