As part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed last year, twelve states across the US will receive federal funding to address record droughts in the West. Three organizations in Idaho will use the grant money to focus on local water restoration projects.
They will receive a combined 4.6 million dollars to restore watersheds and modernize water delivery systems.
According to the US government, more than 20% of lands in the West are experiencing severe to extreme drought, a phenomenon exacerbated by climate change. In Idaho, two-thirds of the state is having an unusually dry season.
Amy Verbeten is the Director of the watershed conservation organization Friends of the Teton River.
The group will be receiving two million dollars to restore the spawning habitat of the cutthroat Trout in Canyon Creek.
“Historically, each spring, large numbers of native cutthroat would make their way up to the headwaters of Canyon Creek to spawn,” Verbeten said, “However, the land was settled, used for agriculture, for recreation, and those spawning runs were heavily impacted by habitat fragmentation.”
The project is a partnership between the Canyon Creek Canal Company, which is made up of agricultural irrigators and friends of the Teton River. Together, they will update the irrigation system serving the surrounding agricultural fields. This will allow Canyon Creek’s wildlife to bounce back, Verbeten said.
Reinstating the Canyon Creek watershed is critical to the region’s economy which is heavily reliant on agriculture and recreational fishing, she added.
“By restoring water and restoring fish runs, we are able to essentially recreate that healthy ecological chain,” she said.
The other two organizations in Idaho receiving funding through this initiative are The Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation and the Board of Control for Triangle Irrigation and Wood River.
