Irrigation District Says Don't Landscape Near Canals

Idaho's Treasure Valley is located in the southwest portion of the state. One property owner carved patterns on the family farm (seen here) but problems cropped up when other residents added landscaping near irrigation canals.

Property owners are being warned to limit landscaping near irrigation canals in Idaho's Treasure Valley near the town of Meridian.

Many people think they have a right to do it, television station KBCI-2 of Boise reports. In many cases, the canal runs right through their backyard. But the Nampa & Meridian Irrigation District says it's a serious problem that can have serious consequences.

District water superintendent John Anderson says one homeowner used gravel to improve the look of his backyard. "Eventually it'll wash back in the bank, and we'll be in here with backhoes restabilizing it, and that'll all be torn out and that makes an angry homeowner," Anderson says.

Anderson has worked for the district for 28 years, and he says as the Treasure Valley grows, so do the district's problems. "More and more encroachments and problems we have in our ditches associated with it," he says.

But there's an even bigger problem beyond cost and convenience. Anderson believes this kind of landscaping makes children feel comfortable playing near the water. "The next thing you know we've got a drowning on our hands, and it's not a safe place to be," he says.

Then there's the garbage, usually yard waste, that gets dumped in and along the ditches. "The cost to take all that to the landfill, that ends up costing the irrigation district taxpayer more money in the long run," says the district's treasurer, Daren Coon.

The law gives irrigation districts an 80-foot easement along their ditches. That's 40 feet on both sides measured from the middle of the current.

This spring, as a new irrigation season begins, the district is asking everyone to be more aware. At stake it says are lives and money.