Third day of the Pocatello EPSCoR adventure!
Submitted by varg3581 on Wed, 2015-06-10 00:00
Yesterday was a blast at the beaver dams. The adventure team measured water quality and learned about the citizen science monitoring of beaver populations. We also were able to fix some more bugs on this blog website. Be sure to check out the new Participants tab, it has the profiles of our participants to see who is joining the Idaho adventure EPSCoR team in Pocatello.
Today the onsite adventurers are going to learning about the history of the Portneuf River and checking out the concrete channel that confines the river through the city. I must say, well done with the blogging by our onsite learners. It is great to see so many great comments, pictures, and videos being uploaded to this website. Have a great day everyone! ALSO, check out this cool short film about the mighty Colorado River. I feel that this film is relevant to our workshop and highlights an issue that slips under the covers here in the United States. FIND IT HERE: https://vimeo.com/63943253
-Wyatt
Comments
The city is looking for input
This news report states that the city is looking for input about the river this fall. They do not give a timeline for this input, but, I think it shows that at least some of our city leadership is thinking about the river.
Historical patterns of Portneuf River
Discussion with Kevin Marsh & Josh Eppley about the history of the area. The city of Pocatello was built around construction of the Railroad not around the river. The little city parks follow the city creek easement to the old Rail Road depo. The Portneuf River was not core to the city of Pocatello. Big floods in 1910-1911, probably caused by tributaries. The large scale action of New Deal jobs putting in riffraff to help control flooding. In the middle 1940's there were large floods on the Portneuf. World War II caused a huge change in organizational policies. U.S. Army Corp of engineers are the federal government head over flood control and navigation. June 12,1945 telegram sent by Pocatello to the Army Corp. asking for Help for flood control. Pocatello is part of the Snake River project that is part of the Columbia River Basin project; Walla Walla district. The Flood Act of 1936. Says that if you are going to get flood aide you need to have matching funds. By the 1950's climate and trust. In federal government changed.
1962,1963 flooding
Worst flooding in March of 1962 and 1963 for Pocatello area. Construction of channel completed in 1968 to hold 6,000 cubic feet/second.
The Portneuf and private property
Years ago, and I don't remember where I got this information (so don't know how accurate it is) I was told that there were some unusual situations with private property issues around the Portneuf River. Here is what I was told: when the city of Pocatello was first starting grow, as Angela mentioned, they didn't really think about the river. So, property lines were drawn with no regard to where the Portneuf was. But, after these properies were set up, Idaho law established that "Idaho's public trust lands are the lands submerged below the ordinary high water mark of navigable streams and rivers within the State. Title to these lands is held in trust and is administered for the public benefit rather than for a specific beneficiary. (Idaho Dept. of Lands)" The channel of every other river in Idaho is "public property," but, in Pocatello, some parts of the river are legally considered private property (because they were privately owned before the public trust land law was written). This makes it very hard for the city or state to do things to improve the river or add public access to it.
I remember talking to somebody who lived by the Portneuf, who said that, if they tried to build a trail along the river next to his house, he would put up a fence all the way down into the water, and sit there with a shotgun to keep people off of his propery!
Does anybody know if this is correct? If it is, it's just one more problem in cleaning up our river!
RE: private property
I spoke with Dr. Marsh about this issue and he said that it is unlikely that the legal status of property ownership of the river and surrounding land is different than in other cities and towns. As we learned today the railroad was the main focus of Pocatello and so the river's importance was not recognized. However, as I understand it any federal or state law regarding water rights in the river would supersede private property ownership. On Monday we met Dr. Donna Lybecker (lybedonn@isu.edu) and she would have more information about the legal aspects of water rights.
private property
Thanks, Emily, for asking about that. I wish I could remember who it was that told me this story; it might have been that person living near the river trying to defend his anger at people who want to use the Portneuf!
Cleaning up
Here's a link to an article about cleaning up the upper Portneuf. It's a few years old, but still interesting:
http://www.portneufriverproject.com/html/press_release.html
Portneuf Project
Interesting article! I like how many people are involved in the clean up of the Portneuf river. The focus is not solely on the concrete byways, the focus is on many other areas of the Portneuf that needs improvement. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks for the article
Thanks for posting this Eric. It is a a very interesting article.
With an eye toward history
We spent the morning on the Portneuf, which I learned from historian, Dr. Marsh, was named after a French fur trapper that plied his trade along the banks of the stream that would bear his name posthumously. We continued our survey of the river gathering our usual markers: pH, turbidity, stream flow, dissolved oxygen, etc. Our sampling began at the junction of the levee and the concrete confinement channel (where City Creek enters) and we wrapped up the trip with launch break at Raymond Park. Emphasis was on the history of the Portneuf and the complex interplay between flood control interests, such as the Army Corp of Engineers, city officials, game and fish interests, farmers, businesses, and property owners. Need for a multiple-benefit approach is evident.