BLACKFOOT — Mayor Scott Stufflebeam will submit an amended proclamation to the Blackfoot City Council regarding water restrictions during their May 5 meeting, and said the hope for a full pond at Jensen Grove Park in 2026 have been dashed.

He said the change in the water restriction was a simple matter of technology.

“We were doing it by date but we had a lot of people telling us they didn’t have a sprinkler system that they could control by date but they could do days of the week,” Stufflebeam said.

The restrictions will still be in place from May 1 through October 1 but instead of even numbered addresses being able to water on even dates and odd numbered addresses on odd dates, even numbered addresses will now be able to water on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, while odd numbered addresses will be able to water on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. No one can water on Sundays.

The only exception will be for new landscaping or grass that needs a daily watering to take hold.

“If you have a surface irrigation water right, then that is not affected by this schedule,” he said. “We are just talking about water from the City of Blackfoot.”

The restrictions are in place, of course, because of the ongoing drought conditions and the exceptionally low snowpack this past winter. Those same conditions have now affected the pond at Jensen Grove Park.

The issues at Jensen Grove that arose last year when a strong spring run off damaged the dike were mitigated in time for this spring’s run off. Stufflebeam said the new, improved dike system was put in place and water was already flowing into the pond.

The $270,000 dike on the west side of the Snake River was built by the Snake River Valley Irrigation District and provides water to an irrigation canal. It also pushes water to the other side of the river where the headgate to the pond at Jensen Grove Park is located.

“The system was working perfectly,” Stufflebeam said. “We were getting great water in and we were beginning to fill the pond and that’s when we got the call.”

The call the mayor speaks of came from the Snake River Valley Irrigation District and told the City of Blackfoot that the State of Idaho put its own water restrictions in place.

“They got notified from the state that the cutoff date for using water is (1896),” he said. “If you have a water right from (1897) and beyond, you are not allowed to use the water.”

Blackfoot’s water right used to fill the pond at Jensen Grove Park is dated 1900. Stufflebeam said just one day after shutting off water to the pond he could tell it dropped a foot. He said a triathlon scheduled to use the pond on June 13th is now a biathlon.

“I don’t think people realize how bad this drought is,” he said. “There is no way we are going to have water there this year. We are all subject to nature and nature hasn’t been cooperative with us when it comes to water.”