An update on our Owyhee River gravel augmentation project.  

Our permits were issued later than expected last year so we planned to do the augmentation in early March--after potential ice out and before typical flow increases. We had all of the operations planned, however flood releases on the Owyhee river have started much earlier than expected. We were very surprised by the early increase in flows, as it is a-typical for the Irrigation District because they usually want to hold water in the reservoir as long as they can. But during last year's high water event, they realized that if they released some water early they can generate extra power income.

The Owyhee mountains have a good snowpack and Owyhee reservoir has excellent carryover from last year which is allowing them to do early power generation this year. We asked them if they could reduce flows to winter levels (50 cfs) for a few days so we could do our augmentation and they said they could not, since they had started power generation they need at least 100cfs to run the turbines and they are adjusting flows based on inflows to the reservoir, which could change at any time. The higher flows make it difficult for us to accurately place the gravel and could be too high for volunteers to safely be in the water. Therefore we decided to push the date back until the end of the irrigation season in the Fall. 

There are some positives about shifting the project to the Fall. The weather will likely be better, making access to the gravel staging area easier and we won’t have to worry about high flows potentially moving the gravel downstream before brown trout get a chance to use it. Stay tuned for more details.

My thanks to the volunteers who have helped get this augmentation planned, including Forrest Goodrum, Jon Fishback, Scott Lenz, Greg Hitchcock, Randy James, Brian Martin and Kent Christensen. I would like to thank our partners for their support and patience as we work to get the gravel into the river where it can do the most good.

The current budget and funding sources for the gravel augmentation are below, including a generous $2,000 donation from the Snake River Waterkeeper organization. Additional funding for this project comes from funds raised at BVFF’s Expo, Greenbacks for Redds, and Idaho Gives Campaign.