Watershed Management

TThe Boise River Watershed (and other watersheds) have existed before us and would continue to exist without us.  The city of Boise and surrounding cities however would not exist without the Boise River and the irrigation engineering that enabled so many to develop agricultural land within the Treasure Valley.  Learning about the history of the Boise River, the irrigation system and ensuing development of the cities of Treasure Valley has been very interesting.  In the 1860's Boise was just a midway location between the two growing mining towns of Idaho City and Silver City.  Some settled along the banks of the Boise River, sustaining themselves by growing crops for those who lived in the mining towns.  At the time the greatest flows occurred for a couple of months in the spring and the main challenge was to homestead close enough to irrigate crops, yet not so close as to become flooded out by occasional higher than normal spring flows.  In 1875 William Morris began the construction of the Ridenbaugh canal.  He successfully oversaw the development of a 7 mile long man dug ditch with 2 miles of smaller ditches extending off that irrigated 1200 acres of farm land south of Boise.  Although his nephew, William Ridenbaugh, tried to expand upon the project upon his uncles death in 1878, he was unable to obtain the funds to do so and had to sell the system.  Over the next 20 years ownership changed hands several times including a group of Eastern entrepreneurs who, in 1883, sent an engineer by the name of Arthur Foote to examine the economic possibilities related to irrigation in the Treasure Valley.  Encouraged by Foote's analysis in 1890 the Eastern capitalists invested money to develop a more encompassing canal system in Boise.  However, their efforts fell apart due to finances after constructing only a part of what became the New York and Phyllis canals.  The abandoned canal project then fell to the newly formed Boise City and Nampa Irrigation, Land, and Lumber Company who extended the canal system to an impressive 105 miles, reaching to Nampa by the end of 1891.  In 1904 the service engineers of the newly formed government entity Bureau of Reclamation arrived in Boise ready to implement the "Boise Project" which included the construction of Arrowrock Reservoir.  The canals were successful in providing irrigation throughout the valley for agricultural purposes however water tables around the valley began to rise resulting in the development of a system in 1913 to return excess flows back to the Boise River. By 1915, Boise and Meridian Irrigation was established and providing reliable irrigation water coupled with a proper reclamation system for excess flows.  Since then, other reservoirs and canals have been added to create what has become a very complex irrigation system essential to the sustaining of Boise and its surrounding cities. Things we take for granted!

To be Continued...