16 big-water battles: Snowstorm, flood recovery is far from over
Snowstorms cloaked the mountains and valleys. The saturated ground froze, buckling asphalt. Then sudden runoff in February and March wrecked more roads and left people scrambling to save their homes and properties from destruction.
By early spring, much of the water had receded, but irrigation districts, road workers, ranchers, homeowners and local governments were still grappling with the effects.
It's far from over.
A. Fish farmer's silver lining
Weighed down by heavy snow, a failing bird netting structure could have spelled disaster for
The long metal pole supporting the netting over the hatchery was bent near the top, and its gravel base was partially washed out by snowmelt from the nearby roof.
"This winter has created an opportunity to review construction," owner
The bird netting has protected his young tilapia from aerial predators for six years, but the design error for the supporting poles wasn't apparent until after this winter, Campbell said. When wind changed direction, snow packed over the netting. Warmer weather made the snow heavy, and the netting sagged, bending the poles.
"My goal is for my staff to learn,"Campbell said, "and most understand you do your best, and sometimes it fails."
The damage was relatively minor for First Ascent, he said, but the weather caused other farms to lose fish.
B. Coping with
Fifteen minutes after
It was
"We had almost entire days when we were just trying to push snow off to the side," Flint said.
Fortunately, approaching from the southeast on
Drivers who didn't get the message about the road sometimes had no cellphone service and had a tight area in which to turn around.
"At first, it was quite a pain," Flint said.
The new route adds about 10 minutes of travel to reach Mountain States Plants, which supplies to warehouses and to stores such as
For the greenhouses, it's been mostly an inconvenience. But it's a major concern for
"Right now we're looking at funding," Director
It will take about 8,000 tons of building material to fix the 50-foot wide roadway.
"If we put it back to the original, the estimates are around
But the concrete culvert has washed out before, he said, most recently in 1979. So the highway district in early April was leaning toward one of these alternatives: installing an overflow pipe, with a cost of about
Compounding the issue: the
The district was considering deferring other construction so it could build a better
C. Newlyweds displaced
Newlyweds Eduardo and
The young
But in March, as
"I got up at 2 in the morning (
By
"It's kind of made us stronger and realize that we're grateful for our family and friends," said Shaleana, 22.
Concerned about electrical hazards in the crawlspace, the Vegas turned off the power and moved in with Shaleana's parents, who live near their workplace. After the water receded, they reconnected the power to fan-dry the house.
But the danger hadn't passed. And this time, the Vegas were determined to be prepared for another flood.
As of
The Vegas feared that a new round of flooding expected in late April could be even worse.
"A lot of people have said we're supposed to be getting more water," Eduardo said. "It's kind of like a waiting game."
Meanwhile, they also were struggling to get answers about the damage in the crawlspace and the garage.
"We're trying to get a bunch of feedback from different contractors," Shaleana said.
As of mid-April, she'd heard conflicting reports. The Vegas know they will have to replace the ventilation pipes and spray for mold. It's also likely they will have to pump their septic tank, get their well tested and replace some insulation and drywall, Eduardo said. And the driveway will need more gravel.
"It's been hard on us because this is our first house me and my wife bought together," he said.
The couple set up a donation account at
"It's a crappy situation," Shaleana said. "But we have great help and good resources around us."
Every day in early April, it took
By then, they were well-practiced. It was
The Tschannens' daily water delivery was a necessity for their beef cattle and for an elderly couple renting a trailer there.
The water in the trailer's kitchen sink "was green and nasty and smelled horrible," Tschannen recalled.
The well tested positive for high levels of E. coli, making water on the ranch unusable even for showering.
"It's been tough," said tenant
Initially the Tschannens brought safe water from a nearby dairy, but later they were driving about a mile to
But Hellwinkel and her 88-year-old partner,
"At our age, you just don't jump up and do something different," Hellwinkel said.
Still, they managed. The couple got water into their travel trailer and used that bathroom for showering -- then dashed back through the cold to the house.
Hellwinkel recalled melting snow at one point to wash her pots and pans, as using paper plates had added to the amount of garbage they'd have to haul out.
"People don't realize how inconvenient it is when you can't turn on the faucet and get water," she said.
After about a month, the Tschannens bypassed the well and connected the house's water system to pods, refilling them with water hauled from the fire station.
But bottled water was still a necessity for drinking and cooking. Tschannen said the well at her house tested positive for coliform bacteria, so she and her husband were also drinking bottled water.
"Until the water's all clear out here, I don't think anyone feels safe drinking it," she said
The water at the trailer couldn't easily be tested while the pods were hooked up to the house, but Tschannen planned to watch how neighbors' wells were doing. Even once the danger passes, she plans to continue having her wells tested from now on, probably two or three times a year.
By early April, well water had improved considerably but was not yet safe. The city of
"We've got people coming in and out of the station all day long,"
E. Dead or orphaned calves
Cattle calving on the range in February had a hard time amid snow and ice.
"The condition was such there was no place to get out of the weather," said
Calves born in those conditions can die or suffer health consequences afterward, and Bennett estimated he lost twice the usual number of newborns. Although he hadn't counted the bodies, he figured it may have been close to 10 percent of his February births. Other ranchers could have lost closer to 15 percent, he said.
In a cattle market where prices are down, they'll have to tighten their belts to absorb the additional revenue loss.
"This year we're going to kind of get by with what we have," Bennett said of his own operations. "We're not going to make any new improvements."
He was able to rescue some of the calves found while searching the fields in the wee hours of the morning. The calves were brought into the barn to recuperate. In a few cases, the mother either could not be found or later abandoned her young.
"We got four to five of those little orphans left," Bennett said
His employees would have to bottle-feed them twice a day for at least four to six weeks.
Other calves that survived still had complications from the cold. Bennett, who is also a veterinarian, figures he used two to three times more medication this winter to treat his herd for lameness, swollen feet and illness spread by crowding in deep snow.
"Mother Nature," he said, "is sometimes relentless, unforgiving."
F. The walkers win
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Dr.
As he reached the top of
He doesn't walk
"You don't stop just for a little pain," Irwin said.
Neither was he hindered by the fact that, in places, the road had been washed out. In fact, he, Nellis and some other pedestrians want to keep it that way.
"This is absolutely a great walking trail," Irwin said.
According to the 20-year right of way grant which expires in 2020, it is
And that's exactly what
"Once you get down there and get hurt, you can't get back out," County Commissioner
The county has no plans to repair the road.
"
And some argue that it would be a waste of public resources.
"It's a dead-end road," Nellis said. "It doesn't seem like a good expense of taxpayer money to pay for something people don't use."
Instead, he said, it should be permanently closed to motorized vehicles and reserved for a walking trail.
Nellis walks the road weekly "mostly to try to stay from getting too fat," he said. It is more difficult to walk now, plunging into craters of rock that used to be its base.
But Nellis and Irwin are willing to lend a hand to make it better.
"That would be relatively easy," said Irwin, whose mules have helped him haul pieces of abandoned vehicles out of the canyon. "It just takes some manual labor to build up a trail."
Jogging along
"I love the fact that cars can't come down here anymore," Neff said. She'd spotted a porcupine and a red fox just the day before. "I had never seen those things in the past."
Irwin believes that the absence of motorized access will result in less garbage being tossed onto the road.
"I don't think we'd turn down any suggestions, particularly for pedestrian traffic," she said.
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Parking lot damage at
The parking lot at
The
"Once it starts getting warmer and the kids are out of school, we'll come out a lot," Delgado said.
She won't be alone, and a potential closure of the parking lot for repaving this fall could affect ease of access to the park.
"The parking lot down there is just absolutely disintegrated," Parks and Waterways Director
The county closed the road to
"The road settled a couple of inches next to the guardrail, and that's what caused the crack," Novacek said. After crews filled it, he was confident the road would stabilize.
But the parking lot will need complete repaving -- at least a
The city of
Delgado was relieved that something was being done about potholes on Twin Falls streets -- despite the inconvenience of road closures.
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Kayaks glide past the nonmotorized boat dock
Tennis ball in mouth, the small black Labrador swam over the submerged boat dock toward her owner, who waited in camouflage waders. Six-month-old Naga was at
"There's no beach," Medlin said. "It's all underwater."
Besides, the swift water there posed a safety risk for Naga.
In fact, recreation all along the
High flows prompted
Farther downstream, another project still waited for completion in mid-April. The road into the Relish Whitewater takeout near
The park vendor was also having a late start to its watercraft rental season.
Melni could hardly have asked for a better opening day for kayak rentals in 2016, when temperatures reached 71 degrees on
But this year, following weeks of heavy flows and bad weather, the business attempted an opening weekend
"They came back kind of shivering," he said.
Melni called it quits, and the next day was no better, with wind that prevented AWOL from doing rentals.
AWOL planned to watch flows and attempt rentals again later this month. Melni expected that with the high flows he wouldn't offer paddleboards or sit-on kayaks early in the season.
I. Drifting snow on Blue Lakes South
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Carberry
As winds swept snow across country roads, some people driving to Joslin Field,
"The highway district worked really hard to keep that road clear," Airport Manager
The airport board discussed options in March.
About a half-mile stretch of the road had problems with drifting snow, possibly limiting traffic to one lane at times, Carberry said. He plans to meet with a farmer who leases land from the airport to discuss options such as snow fencing or shrubs.
The airport pavement, meanwhile, is in good shape after all the bad weather, Carberry said. And about 180 planes were diverted to
"We feel good about being able to assist," he said. "All of those diversions actually are good for the businesses at the airport."
Spring snowmelt quickly eroded roads accessing
The
"They're not in great shape, but they're passable," Twin Falls District BLM spokeswoman
As more vehicles travel on the roads with warmer weather, the agency feared conditions could worsen.
And the BLM was still having difficulty accessing several of its roads in the
"We'll continue on that cycle and make more permanent repairs later on those roads that are continuing to deteriorate," she said.
The majority of BLM roads with access issues were in
The BLM estimates it will cost
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K. Winterkill at
The morning of
Thousands of dead fish had been discovered at the manmade lake north of
The signs pointed to one cause: winterkill, where snow and ice covered the lake, hindering photosynthesis and suffocating the fish.
"We don't typically see a lot of winterkill," said
Stanton and another Fish and Game employee were out moving dead fish away from where the public might encounter them.
"This was a courtesy effort," he said. "We are not obligated to certainly pick up every dead body."
Most of the fish were moved into the water and out of sight, Stanton said. "Mother Nature will take care of the rest."
Mother Nature was at work earlier that month. Birders hoping to spot a few early shorebirds were surprised by what they found instead: hundreds of other birds feasting on the bounty.
"The gulls were having a heyday," said
She'd gone to the reservoir on friend
"They're huge," Asher said of the scaly carp floating in the water. "It's pretty gross."
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Weber returned to
She was disappointed that rising water -- a result of the
"It's always a good day, though," she said, wearing rose-tinted sunglasses and tallying her list on her phone's eBird app.
Most of the fish arrive at the reservoir each year from the
Carp aren't a typical target for anglers because "they have a meat quality that most people don't know how to cook," Megargle said. He didn't expect that any of the game species -- yellow perch and bullhead -- survived.
And there are no plans to stock the reservoir because its water levels and quality for fish life are unpredictable.
"It wouldn't be worth managing unless we see some positive change with water management," Megargle said.
It's possible that additional spring runoff introduced a toxin that killed the fish, Megargle said, but no evidence had proven that.
Some of the fish were scavenged by birds, and others sank into the river for decomposition, but Megargle said the
"They're going to want to come to shore sooner or later," Megargle said. "It just depends which shore."
L. Soggy landfill
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Bartlome
When the
As meltwater inundated stormwater collection ditches, Southern Idaho Solid Waste suddenly found it was short on pumps, Executive Director and CEO
The district initially tried to lease pumps from rental companies.
"You couldn't rent anything because they were all out pumping," Bartlome said.
But to comply with regulations, the landfill had to get rid of the standing water. After buying four pumps from a federal surplus sale in February, it had seven up and running to move the water into a 12-foot-deep retention pond on site.
"We pumped over 7 million gallons away from the landfill in 10 days," Bartlome said. "... I had never seen that retention pond this high."
Standing water was just a part of their troubles. The landfill also had several partial-day closures so staff could get out during times of heavy snow. Water threatened to wash out the main hauling road, and the consistency of other landfill roads made them too dangerous to use for an entire week, Bartlome said.
While most effects from winter storms had been taken care of by late March, some of the extra water was being put to good use.
Leachate ponds at Milner Butte collect moisture that percolates through the landfill -- usually from household waste such as discarded detergents, beverages and foods, Bartlome said. Typically, those ponds evaporate quickly in the arid climate.
But this year, precipitation filled those ponds to the point where the liquid should be removed to prepare for spring storms. So Southern Idaho Solid Waste crews began using it for dust control -- a recirculation that's permitted but rarely happens.
"We're just pumping some of our leachate out of our leachate ponds and putting it back on the landfill," Bartlome said
He estimated the liquid from those ponds could be used for another week, saving the solid waste district from using other water from an on-site tank for its dust suppression.
Although stormwater can slowly seep through the landfill and into the leachate collection system, Bartlome said it was difficult to gauge what effect that might yet have in coming weeks.
After this year's scramble, Southern Idaho Solid Waste also changed its operations policy for dealing with excess water. From now on, it plans to review its operations annually so it can better prepare for such events.
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Creason
For several years, downtown businessman
"We realized so many streets have maybe a higher, even more pressing need than that," he said.
The damage multiplied following this winter's sudden snowmelt runoff, which flooded the town.
But Creason didn't lose sight of his original goal, either. He joined a city subcommittee to develop a master plan for the square and help with a bond election going to voters in May.
If approved, the bond issue would fund street repairs needed after this year's storms -- and kick-start the square improvements.
"As a private citizen, I'm wholly supportive of the idea," Creason said.
As proposed, the city would borrow nearly
Rupert has been falling behind on its infrastructure maintenance -- especially roads -- for years, City Administrator
"Then the storms hit and we had the flooding," Anthon said.
The city's pavement needs went from
That's not all. When roads are repaved, Anthon said, there is often the need to replace underground structures such as water, wastewater and electric lines. That work would add another
"At current spending levels, using only our street maintenance budget, it would take well over 20 years -- as much as 25 years -- to catch up," he said.
Even if the city got some hoped-for state and federal emergency road money, it would still be about a decade behind.
If the bond issue passes, a homeowner with an assessed property value of
Rupert residents will vote
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N. Parakeets and barbed wire
As floodwaters in their pasture rose to 6 feet in February, Coreen and
"The ice froze the barbed wire fence and snapped it in countless places," Coreen said.
James was still working in late March to repair the broken fences at their property north of
But the damaged fence was a much smaller loss than Coreen discovered in her chicken coop: A hundred or so parakeets had all drowned.
"My poor babies are gone," said Coreen, who has raised and sold parakeets for seven years.
While the birds had plenty of perches, she believes they must have thought the 4 feet of water with spilled seed on top was the ground. "They met their maker instead."
At
Coreen hasn't decided whether she will get back into raising parakeets, but she considers herself lucky that her house wasn't damaged.
"The only thing we could claim was the parakeets."
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Equipment operator
O. The irrigation scramble
Bingham, watermaster for
"The flooding has us about two weeks behind," he said about the annual preventive maintenance. "We dedicated most of our assets to the flood zone."
A breach in the
Damage was also spread throughout the company's 500 miles of canals, laterals and drains, with assessments changing daily.
"We've been very busy," General Manager
And there were barriers yet to overcome to accomplish that maintenance. On
"What a mess," he said.
The water from an adjacent hayfield flooded the maintenance road, carving out a section of road as it headed toward the major irrigation drain. The road had to be repaired so excavators could clear away silt the floodwaters had carried into the ditch.
That ditch, Bingham said, had been cleaned out two years before. With all that work undone, it would take an estimated 710 hours to redo it.
"We'll still be feeling the effects of this for at least two years from now," he said.
Pump panels that were submerged will also have to be replaced over the year, with pump damage another costly possibility.
While Bingham doesn't expect another event like this spring's runoff in his lifetime, he's taking steps to ensure the next generations have the guidelines for dealing with one. By October, he hopes to have a plan in place to leave certain headgates open during the off-season, allowing water to flow to prevent a future breach.
P. Washed-out gravel roads
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Malta Roads
Water flows
COURTESY PHOTO
It was early April, and the student at
"The flooding got so bad, it washed out the roads completely," Abrahan said. "They kept having school, but everyone was so busy putting up sandbags and helping with the floods. I had quite a bit to make up."
He drove his pickup on the flooded roads south of
"We actually had probably about 60 miles of our roads that were completely washed out," highway district director
That included a main road accessing City of Rocks National Reserve. And the
"They had to go slow and see what they could do," she said. "The road crews have been really good at getting the roads passable."
By early April,
"We shaped (the roads) up the best we could," Hitt said. "We've already used an awful lot of our budget."
The district hired five temporary crew members for six weeks to help with repairs. Hitt estimated total damages were about
"Our regular maintenance on roads is going to be pushed back," he said.
Funding, Hitt said, was in limbo until the district learned whether it would get federal money. In the meantime, crews were working to repair the last 15 miles of washed-out roads -- while hoping the rest wouldn't sustain more damage.
"We're still fighting the battle out here."
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