BOISE, Idaho — In a month or so, the canal running through Neil Durrant's family farm should fill.
"If we've got to pre-irrigate some of our beats up, it's really good to have the water there," Durrant said.
It's a promising sign of improving drought conditions around Idaho. He said last year, the canal didn't fill until the end of April.
In fact, District 63 watermaster Mike Meyers said it was a "borderline bad year" until late in the season when some wet weather rolled in. But this year, Meyers and other water experts around the Treasure Valley are much more optimistic.
He said most basins are at or above normal snowpack, and there are still six weeks left to get more "significant snow" in the mountains.
"We've had steady moisture all year long," Meyers said. "So, we've just kept climbing nice and steadily, kind of the way that we like."
If this wet weather continues, Erin Whorton, Natural Resources Conservation Service water supply specialist, said Idahoans should see drought removal across most of the state. Although there likely will still be some drought along the southern border.
Much of Idaho has been in drought for the past several years. Right now, she said 79% of Idaho is still in drought, which is an improvement.
Whorton said improving conditions are a big deal since much of Idaho's economy relies on agriculture. Idaho's recreation also benefits. The more snow on the mountains, the better the ski, snowboarding and fishing conditions.
"It's hard on the environment over the long term to be in these dry conditions," Whorton said.
Meyers said the reservoirs are at 60% capacity right now, which means it's not going to take too much more water for officials to start releasing some of the extra over the spillway gates at Lucky Peak.
Durrant said reservoirs have about 150,000-acre feet more sitting in the reservoirs than at this time last year. More water means more crops and money.
As of now, he said they are optimistic his family's farm, Big D Ranch, will have enough water to plant everything they need. If there's not enough water, they have to choose which crops to plant, which hurts their bottom line.
"It makes us feel a lot better, a little more at ease that we're not worrying about figuring out what we're going to plant," Durrant said. "We kind of know what we have, and we can fit it into our rotation, and we can plant some of the crops that will hopefully generate a little bit more revenue for us and not worry about shorting them with water."
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