Water. It’s up to all of us to use it wisely.
We admire its beauty in pristine lakes and its power over thundering waterfalls. We drink it. We bathe and brush our teeth and cook our meals with it. We wash our cars and grow our lawns with it. We fish in it, play in it, cool off with it.
We need water for virtually every industrial process — to make fertilizer or french fries, to make electricity or to provide cooling for all that data we store in the “cloud.”
And, around here, we grow crops with it.
The latest USGS study shows that nearly all of Idaho’s water is used for agricultural irrigation. Only about 2% of it is used for public or domestic purposes.
Since I.B. Perrine diverted the flow of the mighty Snake in 1905, the life-giving liquid flows through our irrigation canals. In the Magic Valley — often called the “breadbasket of Idaho” — we use water to grow the raw products.
Alfalfa — an important part of a cow’s diet — is our thirstiest crop. It takes many gallons of water to grow a to…
