IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) – A controversial move by the state water board is causing concern for some farmers.
In mid-January, the board voted to pause funding for injection or recharge wells throughout the state.
The move came in response to a group of protesters in Shelley, who opposed a test recharge well in their area. According to an email sent to Local News 8, the protestors are concerned that the injection wells could infect their drinking water.
“The state water resource board is telling us that they have tested canals, extensively and found that they meet the Safe Drinking Water Act standards except for bacteria, and when injected into the aquifer, the bacteria will quickly die due to lack of oxygen,” Gary Tyger writes to Local News 8. “We do not believe that canal water meets the safe drinking water at standards if properly sampled. We also can point to studies that show that the bacteria takes months sometimes to die in the low oxygen environment and much more study is needed to see what happens to pathogens. The injection wells are about 350 feet deep, which means they go directly into our drinking water.”
However, projects to recharge the Snake Plain aquifer were a major part of Governor Brad Little’s keeping promises agenda for the 2025 legislature and the 2024 water agreement which ended the historic water cut-off last year.
Now farmers who rely on the aquifer are concerned over the future of the much needed resource.
“There’s only three ways of recharge right now,” Blackfoot farmer Brian Murdock tells Local News 8. “One of them is that we turn the water into the canals early. The other way is the few recharge basins we have…but those are costly, they’re big and they have their problems too. The other way that we can recharge is what we call recharge wells. This is where we go on the side of a canal and we drill a hole just like a well for a house. Then we control the water that we let go into this hole out of the canal and into the aquifer.”
According to the 2024 water agreement, groundwater districts are required to contribute 205,000 acre-feet of water in aquifer recharge.
To meet the required recharge, the Bingham groundwater district purchased equipment to build injection wells in the county, according to Murdock. But with the pause in place, Murdock and his neighbors are concerned they will fall behind.
“Even if it’s a two-month pause, by the time they allow us to do that we’re going to be into March, April,” said Murdock. “We can’t get everything all working and set up. We need to be drilling these.”
The state water board says the pause in funds will allow them to research how the potential projects will impact Gem state communities.
The water board is expected to discuss the recharge efforts at their upcoming meetings this March.
