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By Emily Hone BLACKFOOT — Flooding of the Snake River in areas from Shelley to Thomas and crop damage from two recent severe storms prompted the County Commissioners on Monday to declare an emergency and ask Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter for a disaster declaration for Bingham County.
 The Morning News / Emily Hone
A mallard drake swims where the cattle once fed at the Layne Hamilton ranch on Riverton Road. Flooding and more anticipated flooding from the Snake River plus hail storm damage prompted the County Commissioners Monday to petition Gov. Otter for a disaster declaration.
According to the resolution passed by the Commissioners, flooding is threatening and causing severe damage to property in the county, including houses, mobile homes, churches, schools, municipal water supplies and many acres of farmland.
They said it also appears that infiltration of water into septic tanks and drainfields may pollute local public and private water supplies, and hail from storms on June 4 and this past Sunday resulted in severe crop damage in some areas.
“Public and private buildings,including residences, private water supplies and farmland have been and are being damaged by flooding and the threat of additional flood damage is “both certain and imminent,” the resolution states.
“An emergency exists which local and county and private resources are inadequate to control, and Federal and State assistance is required,” it says.
The resolution is signed by commissioners Ladd Carter and Donavan Harrington. Commission Chairman Cleone Jolley is out of the office on vacation, but voted with them via telephone.
The second violent storm to hit Bingham County in a little over two weeks devastated fields of potatoes, grain, and unmown hay in a narrow swath on either side of U.S. Highway 91 from Fort Hall to Blackfoot Sunday afternoon.
Coming out of the south, the storm that brought violent winds, hail and rain hit Blackfoot about 4 p.m., pounding everything in its path and soon had the streets running with water that flooded some intersections and low-lying areas with up to a foot of water.
According to Travis Wyatt, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Pocatello, two storms on Sunday dumped a total of 1.27 inches of rain on Blackfoot proper, bringing the city’s June rainfall to 5.85 inches and surpassing the 98-year record set in 1963.
In the hardest hit potato and alfalfa fields, leaves were stripped from the stems in field after field in the 11 mile stretch of farmland along Highway 91 on the Fort Hall Reservation.
Except where stalks of wheat and barley were lying on the ground, the damage to grain was less noticeable, but in a day or two will be evident when the heads start turning brown, one grower said.
In some of the affected fields, all that was left of potato plants that were entirely leafed out before the storm and ready to close the rows were pale green stems poking into the air.
Plants in fields not in the direct path of the hailstorm showed less severe damage and are expected to recover -- as long as the abuse is not -- repeated, but yields will be down and quality could be compromised as well.
A grower whose fields are on the periphery of the worst damage said the stress from injury will cause those potato plants that had already set tubers to lose them and delay the set if they didn’t.
He said with good care and fair weather the heavily damaged plants could put out new leaves in time. However, the injured plants will be susceptible to early blight and should be sprayed to prevent it, he said.
An agronomist for a private company who was out photographing the damage agreed the plants that aren’t severely damaged could regrow leaves, but said some have damaged stems as swell.
He said the problem in the sandy reservation soil is that regrowth won’t happen quickly enough. Without a leaf canopy to protect them from the hot rays of the sun, he said, the tubers will be damaged.
Darwin Jensen, local fieldman for the Snake River Sugarbeet Company, said only one field of about 300 acres was damaged , but could recover with good weather and care, although it will be three weeks behind schedule. Sugarbeets receive more damage in th earlier storm, he said.
Travis Wyatt, a meteorologist with the U.S. Weather Service in Pocatello, said the storms are gone for today and Wednesday but another one is expected on Thursday. After that, he said, the weather should be dry.
The Snake River continued to rise Monday, and Art Hill, a hydrological engineer with the Bureau of Reclamation in Burley, said the agency made another release from Palisades Monday that should be the last for a while. It brings the cubic feet per second coming out of the reservoir to 22,600, but he said it will take about three days for the new water to reach Blackfoot, where the river was flowing at 19,200 cfs Monday and .03 feet below flood stage.
Hill said releases from Jackson Lake were increased by another 1,000 cfs Monday, and the agency has raised the spillway gates at the dam to make room for another half-foot of water, but if heavy inflows don’t stop they will be forced to increase the amount coming from the reservoir.
“Several places got a half inch of water from Sunday’s storm and that really hurts us. It’s messing with our operation,” Hill said.
The good new, he said, is that inflows from the Grey and Salt rivers are slowing.
On the Net: Idaho Bureau of Homeland Security: http://www.bhs.idaho.gov/
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