For the week of July 18 - July 24, 2001

Canal renews 
river’s flows

---

By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer

Express photo by Willy Cook.

If Magic Reservoir and the Richfield Canal all but dry up the Big Wood River, the Milner-Gooding Canal makes it flow again.

The Milner-Gooding Canal extends from Milner Lake on the Snake River to north of Gooding. The 70-mile canal was completed May 10, 1932, after five years of construction.

At its Snake River diversion, the canal has a capacity of 2,700 cubic feet per second. That’s roughly 500 cubic feet per second more water than the Big Wood carries during its 85-year average peak flows through Hailey. It’s nine times more water than the Big Wood is now carrying through Hailey.

The Milner-Gooding Canal furnishes a full water supply for 20,000 acres of farm and ranch land on the Snake River Plain. It furnishes a supplemental water supply for 78,667 acres.

A mile east of Shoshone, the canal flows into a state-of-the-art mechanical diversion. There, the canal’s flows are split, dumping about half into the Little Wood River. The remainder of the water is channeled beneath the Little Wood and into a canal that resurfaces and continues northwest toward the Big Wood drainage and farms north of Gooding.

Just a mile north of Shoshone, a concrete section of the canal can be seen snaking through lava beds as it travels northwest toward the Big Wood and the multitude of farms and ranches found near the river’s banks.

The Milner-Gooding Canal is just a small part of the Bureau of Reclamation’s Minidoka Project, which includes Jackson Lake and Grassy Lake in Wyoming, and Palisades Reservoir, Ririe Reservoir, Island Park Reservoir, American Falls Reservoir and Lake Walcott in Idaho. The irrigation and hydropower system also includes two diversion dams, a multitude of canals, laterals and drains, and some 177 water supply wells.

The Minidoka Project irrigates more than 1 million acres of land on the Snake River Plain. It helps produce potatoes, sugar beets, beans, corn, grains and alfalfa. During the 1980s, the total value of the Minidoka Project’s crop production exceeded an average of $200 million each year. In the 1990s, crop values grew to more than $500 million annually.

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.