The Idaho Bureaucrats Threatening the State’s Irrigation System

This is the height of bureaucratic bull.  Southern Idaho is a patchwork of canals.  Before the ditches were dug, life here was unsustainable.  Very little would grow, and the first settlement attempt coming north from the Great Basin failed.  Then irrigation arrived in the form of canals.  Over the course of more than a century, these have been improved.  Now there are plans to upgrade the system to limit leaks and evaporation.  Good idea, right?

What, Pray Tell, are They Thinking?

Then an organization with the benign name of the State Historical Preservation Office jumped in with both feet.  The agency is known as SHIPO for short, as in full of ship!  Twin Falls County Commissioner Rocky Matthews made an appearance on Magic Valley This Morning on KLIX.  He explained SHIPO would like to designate the canals as historic structures, which could subject irrigation improvements to bureaucratic review.

Friends, this is Idaho.  Who in their right mind wants government modeled on neighboring Oregon, Washington, and California?  The canals sustain civilization here.  Without them, we get economic collapse and depopulation of the valley.

Practical Should be the Defining Answer

Some of you know that I’m not a historian by vocation, but it’s my passion outside of work.  I was provided the paperwork 42 years ago by a professor for admission into an international historical society, but I misplaced it after graduation.  I own over 2,000 books, most of which are dedicated to history.  Some things are worth preserving, but the utilitarian nature of the canals is about eating, or not!

Some of our elected representatives at the state level need to put aside their religious crusade and stop any attempt to destroy the lives of their constituents.