MOUNTAIN HOME AIR FORCE BASE, Idaho — Officials broke ground Tuesday on a totaling $142 million water project at Mountain Home Air Force Base (MHAFB), marking the start of providing a long-term water supply to the base.
The MHAFB Water Resilience Project, led by the Idaho Department of Water Resources (IWRB), will consist of a 14.4-mile underground pipeline that will transport water from the Snake River’s C.J. Strike Reservoir to Mountain Home AFB.
Mountain Home AFB currently relies on groundwater wells that are shared with the rest of the City of Mountain Home. Due to the large amount of use by the base and citizens of Mountain Home, the aquifers supplying this water have been declining at a fast rate.
"Water is in short supply. What this does is literally guarantee the existence of Mountain Home Air Force Base that there will not be any resource constraints on growth. This pipe is big enough for now and big enough for the future," Governor Brad Little told KTVB.
To address this, plans for the project started in 2014 when IWRB purchased Snake River water rights from Simplot in 2014.
"This is a very significant project for the water board. It's one of our larger projects," Chairman Jeff Raybould told KTVB Tuesday.
The $40 million water pipeline is funded by the American Rescue Plan Act. The pipeline construction will be built by IDWR contractors.
In addition to the pipeline, a $102 million water treatment plant will be located on the MHAFB. The treatment plant will purify the water coming in from the C.J. Strike Reservoir.
The treatment plant will be able to clean 3.5 million gallons of water per day and has a storage capacity of 6 million gallons of water.
IWRB and Governor Little expressed the necessity of the plentiful water initiative because of MHAFB’s importance to national and state security as well as its contribution to the economy.
“Most important, we have got to defend this country and the pilots that have been trained here for decades and decades and decades are the pilots that keep this country safe. It generates about a billion dollars’ worth of revenue and activity in the state of Idaho," said Governor Brad Little.
The IWRB Chairman also spoke to the organizations’ respect of military stating, “we value the Air Force Base and the contributions that it makes to the to the state of Idaho, both economically and we're strong supporters of the military, and we wanted to make sure that the base had a long-term reliable supply of water."
The MHAFB Water Resilience Project is meant to sustain the base, the operations, and the over 8,000 people of it.