Idaho Experienceing Worst Drought in 500 Years

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Y LAND LETTER: The Natural Resources Weekly Report Thursday, May 05, 2005 . WATER Idaho experiencing worst drought in 500 years Natalie M. Henry, Land Letter Northwest reporter Pagel of 2 In the few short years of this new millenium, few people in the West have gone untouched by drought. But one state has experienced it year after year without reprieve -- Idaho has had five straight years of drought, going on six, and is breaking drought records along the way. According to a state hydrologist, Idaho is experiencing its worst drought in 500 years, one that could end up being the longest drought on record as well. If 2005 ends up being another dry year, as it is predicted to be, the state will have endured six straight years of drought, beating out the Dust Bowl years in the 1930s as the longest drought on record. Such continual drought means the reservoirs cannot refill and Idaho is living year to year for its water supplies without being able to save water. Karl Dreher, director of the Idaho Department of Water Resources, noted the intensity of his state's drought at a water conference in Boise recently. "The fact is that the drought we're experiencing in the upper Snake Basin is not only the worst drought on record but we've done some statistical analysis ... and it appears to have a probability, or a recurrence interval, of something greater than 500 years," Dreher said. "The thing that's remarkable and remarkably disastrous about this drought sequence is it's been essentially 6 years ... of back -to -back dry years well below normal. And that's the part that we haven't had in the upper Snake Basin before." Mark Svoboda of the National Drought Mitigation Center in Nebraska said the Northern Rockies -- Idaho, parts of Montana and parts of Wyoming -- is the epicenter for the Western drought and, despite the focus on the Southwest, has been experiencing much more consistent drought than other areas of the West. U, S. Drought Monitor 1_ il I T, f+ Uffi V*T Areas in red on the map represent the most severe areas of drought. Map courtesy of the National Drought Mitigation Center. Click here for a larger version of the map. "That is definitely ground zero for the drought," Svoboda said. Drought has come and gone in the Southwest and California, with dry years punctuated periodically by normal or wet years, but people in the Northern Rockies have been coping with the drought the longest, he said. The construction of reservoirs has helped Idaho through its exceptional drought, which has helped the state avert the kind of turmoil experienced in the days of the Dust Bowl. But the reservoirs only hold two to three years of water supply. "In the 1930s, we didn't have the extensive system of reservoirs on the Snake River that we now have, and those reservoirs have made the difference between not going through something as bad as the 1930s outcome while being able to withstand something far worse than the 1930s," Dreher said. But, he added, "those reservoirs are essentially empty." http: / /www.eenews. net /Landletter /include /Print.php ?single= 05050503 5/5/2005