"The man behind the curtain" for the Bureau’s operations along the Boise and Payette rivers is Rick Wells. As the water operations manager for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Central Snake River Project, Wells is in charge of regulating the reservoir levels and the streamflows of the Boise and Payette Rivers. That means having direct operational responsibility for Anderson Ranch, Arrowrock, Cascade and Deadwood dams. He also cooperates with the Corps of Engineers in the operation of Lucky Peak Dam.

In addition, Wells provides assistance to irrigation district managers who operate reservoirs on the Owyhee, Malheur, Burnt, and Powder rivers in Oregon. He also supervises employees who work in the areas of water conservation, water quality, and water rights.

In his job, Wells must make sure irrigators have water for their crops, but at the same time ensure that the Boise area does not flood if too much water is sent down the rivers. In addition, during certain times of the year he must also try and find water for fish and recreation interests. Increasingly, a new demand is for municipal water supplies.

Wells: "…there really isn’t enough water to satisfy all the demands. And so many demands are conflicting, not only in terms of quantity but also in terms of time of use."

"The people who really depend on the storage water, and that’s largely the irrigators, they’re concerned about any release of water before they’re assured that the reservoir will fill, and on the other hand are the people that live in areas that are at risk of flooding, and of course they don’t like the idea of taking any risk of any flooding and so most of them would like to see a fairly large release throughout the fall, winter and spring to ensure there’s lots of space in the reservoir system that will deal with any potential rainfall or rapid snowmelt."

"There are a lot of environmental concerns now of course. There’s a lot of concern about minimum stream flow, flow rates…"

…and of course the boating interests and other people who like to go to the reservoirs for recreation, like to see those reservoirs full most of the time and they’re quite upset when we get into a drier situation or there’s a rapid drawdown of those reservoirs."

"…one thing that’s really on the horizon now is providing water for urban, municipal uses here in Boise. These are interests or goals that are not only a change but at the present time we don’t have clear-cut legislative authority for moving into new areas so we’re kind of caught between changing demands on the part of the public without really concurrent changing legal authorities. So lots of times we’re being asked to do things that we just don’t have the authority or right to do."

Reservoirs on the Boise River are usually filled from the top down (Anderson Ranch, Arrowrock, Lucky Peak) and evacuated for flood control in reverse order. However, during the summer, when irrigators need water most, the Bureau departs from that procedure and releases water from Arrowrock Dam prior to Lucky Peak. This maintains Lucky Peak near full (in adequate water years) until Labor Day so that recreationists can use it. Then Lucky Peak is drafted to meet irrigation deliveries in September and early October.

Wells: "Yes, it will flood again and that’s something that we know just from the historical record of the kind of flows that have been seen in the past here the Boise watershed…lots of people think that because we have dams on the Boise River that that is going to provide an ironclad protection against flooding and that’s not the case. So people who live in a flood plain are living at risk."

 "As long as conditions don’t depart in too extreme a fashion from the norm, we have a high probability of being successful. We don’t plan for that type of worst case scenario because if we did; if we planned to able to handle 5 times average precipitation in the month of May and then we got average precipitation, which is far more probable, then we’d end up with a substantial shortage of storage water in the reservoir system."

"…it’s stressful and over the years I’ve personally, you know, learned to deal with it a lot better. I think 4 or 5 years ago I did have a lot of trouble sleeping and worried a great deal and now I’ve become more accustomed to it and a little more confident.

But there are certainly times, when, especially if we get into one of the scenarios like we did last year where the flows are still coming very rapidly and there’s only a few days of storage left in the system. There was a period last year of a few days when it looked like we could have some serious flooding and fortunately that didn’t occur, but there were a few days that were very stressful."

Quiz:

What is the total area of the Boise Basin watershed?

500 square miles
1000 square miles
2700 square miles
ANSWER

How much water can the dams in the Boise Basin watershed hold?

275,000 acre feet
560,000 acre feet
974,000 acre feet
ANSWER

What is the total runoff in the Boise Basin watershed in one year?

250,000 acre feet
500,000 acre feet
1,000,000 acre feet
2,000,000 acre feet
ANSWER

One inch of runoff across the total Boise Basin watershed will provide:

57,000 acre feet of water
143,000 acre feet of water
345,000 acre feet of water
ANSWER

Before the dams were built, the maximum recorded discharge along the Boise River was:

25,000 cfs
35,500 cfs
50,000 cfs
ANSWER

Since all 3 dams were constructed the maximum recorded discharge out of Lucky Peak Dam was:

10,200 cfs
13,200 cfs
15,700 cfs
ANSWER

What level is considered "flood stage" on the Boise River?

Above 5,500 cfs
Above 7,000 cfs
Above 10,000 cfs
ANSWER

How much fresh fallen snow would have to melt to produce 1 inch of water?

2 inches
5 inches
10 inches
ANSWER