Minor flooding on the Boise Greenbelt prompts closures, but it shouldn’t deter users from enjoying this gem
By Steve Dent
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BOISE (KIVI) — The Army Corps of Engineers raised the water level in the Boise River to 5,800 cubic feet per second, but the river is still flowing below flood stage which happens at 7,000 CFS.
There are several places along the Boise Greenbelt that are closed because of minor flooding with the most prominent areas being near the Park Center Bridge and the nature areas on both sides of the river near Barber Park.
Boise Parks and Rec and other managers have installed signs warning people of the closures taking people on short detours, but that shouldn’t deter people from going out on the Greenbelt.
“This is nothing,” said Bruce Chase who was enjoying the Greenbelt with his wife Cheryl. “Nobody’s house is flooded, everybody can get back and forth on the bridges. This is really not at flood stage.”
We biked from Ann Morrison to Barber Park to check out the conditions and the people we talked to weren’t concerned with the flooding, but Bruce remembers back when he was a child before the Army Corps of Engineers built the dams on the Boise River.
“The whole north end was buried in mud. The Co-op and everything behind it going down Eighth Street all the way to the foothills,” said Chase, who told us this was back in the 50s. “It was quite a deal.”
In modern times the Army Corps of Engineers attempts to mitigate flooding by using a formula where they look at snowpack and weather forecasts. They have been releasing water since April 3.
The Army Corps of Engineers has done a good job alerting the public when the water levels are expected to rise, and we saw several areas along the Greenbelt where more water will mean some additional flooding.
It is a good time to avoid the river as it is running swift and cold. The Boise River float season will also be delayed, but that doesn’t mean people can’t still enjoy a day on the Greenbelt.
“We played up and down here when there was no Greenbelt,” said Chase. “It was just marsh and it was a kind of Tom Sawyer / Huckleberry Finn type deal.”
The Greenbelt provides us with a gem running right through the heart of the Treasure Valley and on this beautiful day, it was brimming with life from the walkers to the joggers and the bikers along with a slew of wildlife.
With warm temperatures on the way we could see the river rise higher, the last time we saw severe flooding was back in 2017 following the winter of Snowmageddon.
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