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Irrigation from 4 Lower Snake River Reservoirs
by Reed Burkholder |
Reservoir | Farm | Acres Irrigated | Pumping Head |
---|---|---|---|
Lower Granite | 0 | ||
Little Goose | 0 | ||
Lower Monumental | 0 | ||
Ice Harbor | Elmer Rada | -- | 462 feet |
Ice Harbor | Alvin Harris | -- | ? feet |
Ice Harbor | Darrel Klundt | 300 | 300 feet |
Ice Harbor | WSDNR | 520 | 440 feet |
Ice Harbor | Flat Top Ranch | 540 | 26 feet |
Ice Harbor | Broetje Orchards | 2,100 | 26 feet |
Ice Harbor | Snake River Vineyards | 2,750 | 462 feet |
Ice Harbor | T & R Farms | 3,200 | ~400 feet |
Ice Harbor | Burbank Ranch | 3,800 | 260 feet |
Ice Harbor | Hilltop Farms | 3,814 | 445 feet |
Ice Harbor | Ice Harbor Farms | 4,500 | 462 feet |
Ice Harbor | Carr/Parker Farms | 3,400 | 415 feet |
1,300 | 350 feet | ||
Ice Harbor | Agri Northwest | 10,000 | 560 feet |
___________ | |||
Ice Harbor | 13 Farms | 36,224 acres |
All of these agricultural reservoir users are pumping their irrigation water. There are no canals delivering flood irrigation water from diversions on the Lower Snake.Water is pumped from the top of the full reservoir to cropland 20-560 feet above the surface of the reservoir.
Comparisons to the 36,224 total irrigated acres:
- This is 55 square miles of the equivalent of a strip of land 1.7 miles wide along the entire 32 mile length of Ice Harbor Reservoir.
- This is an area 16% of the size of the irrigated land in Canyon County, Idaho. Canyon County, home of Nampa and Caldwell, has 215,279 acres of irrigated farmland. (source: 1992 Census of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Commerce, pages 162-167)
- Washington's total cropland is about 6,500,000 acres. The 35,000 irrigated acres which use Ice Harbor water amount to roughly 1/2 of 1% of Washington's total cropland.
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