By ROBERT S. MERRILL
Assistant editor
With all the snow that has been on the ground across the valley this winter, many people may think we are going to have plenty of water this coming summer.
“We are much better off across the low lands of Franklin County than we were last year at this time,” said King Smith, who keeps records for the National Weather Service. “But we are hurting in the mountains where much of the irrigation water for farmers comes from.”
Smith said the mountain snowpack in the Bear River Basin, on average, is at least two percent behind where it was last year and last year was a dry one. His comments were echoed by Lauritz Smith, water master for Twin Lakes Irrigation Company.
Lauritz said irrigators who rely on water stored in area reservoirs will be hurting by mid-to-late summer unless an extremely wet period the next four-to-five weeks materializes. He said the area also needs a wet spring and early summer in order to stretch irrigation supplies.
Water cascades over cliffs into the Bear River at the mouth of the Bear River Narrows. Twin Lakes Canal Company has put water into its canal system in Mink Creek to divert it into Twin Lakes Reservoir early this year because of a low snow pack.
Automated Sno-tel locations in the Bear River Range reveal on Feb. 28 snow-water equivalent at only 75 percent of long-term averages. Total precipitation is at 82 percent of normal.
This story is sponsored by Preston Auto Parts.
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