Philanthropy Northwest Thriving Communities Grant

The Valley Soil & Water Conservation District has launched a groundwater and surface water availability study for the Payette River Watershed through a Philanthropy Northwest Thriving Communities grant. The study is spearheaded by Idaho Water Resource Research Institute affiliated with University of Idaho researchers who will assess as much as possible about the quantity of water resources in our communities to support more informed and co-operative water management and planning decisions.  A publicly available data repository will be created with the results.  The grant also enabled the District to purchase state of the art water quality monitoring equipment for Lake Cascade. In addition, the grant will pay for some of the needed lab fees to monitor water quality in Payette Lake.