For the week of December 5 - 11, 2001

Let it snow, let it snow

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By PETER BOLTZ
Express Staff Writer

The Ketchum Ranger Station reported that by the end of the last snow storm Monday, 25 inches of snow was on the ground in Ketchum.

This amount of snow is approximately equivalent to 2.5 inches of water.

How the recent snowfalls translate into water for irrigation is hard to tell at this point.

Norma Peterson, the secretary for Water District 37 and 37M of the Big Wood River, said her office "doesn’t project or predict."

Despite the snow, she said, "it could still be a bad year, or it could turn around and be a good year. God only knows."

Lynn Harmon, the water master for Magic Reservoir, and Bob Simpson, the water master of the Little Wood Reservoir, were unavailable for comment about snowpack at their reservoirs.

However, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service reported that this fall’s and winter’s precipitation is 114 percent above average for the Big and Little Wood water basins.

Another way to look at the impact of the snowfall is the number of truckloads the city of Ketchum has so far hauled off its streets—850 truckloads between Sunday and Tuesday.

Ketchum city administrator Jim Jaquet said each truckload is about 20 cubic yards of snow.

Doing the math, the volume of snow so far removed from the streets of Ketchum is equivalent to a foot of water covering 10 football fields or approximately 10 acre feet.

The city hires private contractors to dump the snow in a field west of the bike path where it intersects with Serenade Lane.

Jaquet said the city spent $125,442 in the winter of ‘96-’97 to clear snow.

He said since that winter, the city has budgeted $175,000 for snow removal.

Last year, the city spent $46,576.

 

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