New canal pipeline provides new access to water and helps aquifer recharge
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IDAHO FALLS – A pipeline project northeast of Idaho Falls will provide more access to Idaho’s greatest natural resource.
Gov. Brad Little, the Idaho Water Resources Board and others were in town Thursday afternoon to celebrate the construction of the new Enterprize Canal pipeline. The Enterprize Canal diverts water from the Snake River to more than 200 farmers who irrigate 5,436 acres in the Ririe area.
The 1.6-mile pipeline project got underway in September. It will extend from Foster Cellars owned by Foster Cattle near Ririe and flow to Willow Creek five miles southeast of Ririe. From there, it will drain into a new Snake River recharge basin on 55th East.
The basin, which sits on an 8-acre site that is 30 feet deep and can hold up to 15,000-acre-feet of water, was completed in September. The pipeline is slated for completion in March.
Enterprize Canal board member Darrel Ker tells EastIdahoNews.com this project will upgrade its current canal system to an efficient pipeline that will increase access to the water supply and “save approximately 7,500-acre-feet of water” per year.
“This project has always been a pipe dream. But through Gov. Little’s support and funding opportunities, this project is now a pipe reality,” Ker said during Thursday’s news conference. “We have faced so many challenges and setbacks that have seemed insurmountable … but we look to these small actions today knowing they will provide tremendous benefits tomorrow.”
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This project comes in the wake of an ongoing conflict about water rights and depletion of the Snake River Aquifer. It also resolves another fight for the Enterprize Canal Company dating back to the 1930s.
At the time, severe flooding wiped out a section of the canal that served 2,718 acres in the southern part of the system. As a result, the canal company was forced to use a neighboring canal to divert water to Willow Creek so the southern half had access to water.
Additional challenges came along 50 years later.
“The Bonneville Power Administration (a federal agency created in 1937 to create and sell electric power throughout the Pacific Northwest from the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River) put their power poles right in our old canal bottom in the early 1980s,” Ker says. “When they did that, we lost our right of way.”
The canal company has had water rights at this location since the 1800s. Though the Carey Act of 1894 protects those rights, it’s been an uphill battle to have unrestricted access to water.
After years of litigation, Enterprize Canal Company finally bought the land surrounding the canal in 2022, which provided complete access to the water flow.
The agreement with the neighboring canal expires in 2024, so Ker says the pipeline project couldn’t be happening at a better time.
“I have fought this since I got on the board 28 years ago,” Ker explains. “This spring, I promise the 110 irrigators who own water on this canal will have their water and it will flow through this pipe. Failure is not an option. We have no choice but to put pipe in the ground.”
The canal company is working with multiple contractors to complete it. A Kentucky-based company called ISCO is supplying high-density polyethylene piping. It’s 63 inches in diameter and is known for its light weight, durability, flexibility and strength, according to its website.
A company spokesman says its leak-proof and lasts much longer than PVC pipe.
Core & Main, a water works equipment supplier in Idaho Falls, is helping with fusion — the process that connects the pipe together. See how it works in the video above.
The total cost of the pipe-laying portion of the project is around $10 million, according to Ker. Between $3.6 and $6 million have been provided through state grants.
“We have allocated a lot of resources into water,” Little said to Thursday’s crowd. “I want to thank the board and the Enterprize Canal Company for making this investment. This is just one example of a lot of projects we’re going to do all over the state (to modernize water infrastructure). I’m excited for what we’re going to do.”
The realization of the pipeline project is an emotional issue for Ker. Through tears, he expressed gratitude to the IWRB and Gov. Little at the news conference for allowing “a modest canal in Ririe to be a small part” of their vision for improving Idaho’s distribution of water.
The 63-year-old Iona man later recalled to us how his parents pulled water out of the Enterprize Canal years ago to run a 25-acre farm. He choked up as he remembered what it cost them and the sacrifices they had to make. The decades of fighting that have culminated in this project is something Ker celebrates.
“The day that I can watch water flow out of the end of the creek will be a historic day,” he says, tearing up. “In the last 93 years, it hasn’t been (flowing). We’re going to bring it to life.”
