ALERT: Idaho Water Manager Warns of Drought Crisis

I watched it rain.  Thursday afternoon.  It didn’t take much time.  It was a brief and light shower.  Now the long-range weather forecast is back to the sameness we’ve known for months.  The next week is expected to be dry, as are most of our summers, but it’s the other seasons that have been unusually dry in recent years that worry us.  Former Jerome County Commissioner Roger Morley once told me the Magic Valley has been slowly drying up since the early 1980s.  The pattern was so gradual that the outcome took years for laymen like me to notice.  It could end tomorrow, but what if it doesn’t?

Maybe We've Been Too Complacent in a Crisis

I’ve been laboring under the belief that people behind the scenes have been working on this and looking for a solution.  Many of us don’t think of water as long as it comes out of a tap and the shower still works, because most people are no longer tied to the land.  But I take notice when I read the thoughts of one area water manager.  Many news outlets across Idaho published a column by Dan Davidson.  You can read it at this link.  This isn’t a typical crisis.  The words existential threat get overused, but not in the case of life in southern Idaho.

How Long Before We Reach the Breaking Point?

Last weekend I drove through a new housing complex.  Modern homes are incredibly efficient when it comes to water use, and our cities and towns have been able to ring every last drop from a cloth, but without rain and snow, it can’t last forever.  The West is filled with ghost towns where the gold, silver, or lumber was exhausted.  What we’re facing dwarfs all of those historic inevitabilities.