21 January 2014 (17:03 UTC-07 Tango 20 January)/19 Rabi ‘al-Awwal 1435/01 Bahman 1392/21 Gui-Chou (12th month) 4711

“What we need is precipitation that’s 150% of normal between now and April 1!”– Ron Abramovich, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service

Idaho has officially been in a drought since 2000, and weather forecast say there’s no way we could see 150% precipitation between now and 01 April: “What we’re seeing meteorologically is a blocking pattern that is deflecting all the storms……..when you have fire season and drought, you’ll see more fire.”-Brian Fuchs, National Drought Mitigation Center

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has declared a drought emergency for Idaho.  This makes available loans to farmers in 40 of Idaho’s 44 counties, but such emergency loans would’ve been unnecessary if Congress got their act together: “If we had a farm bill, they could apply for disaster assistance. But since we don’t, they can only apply for emergency loans.”-Candy Moore, Idaho Farm Services Agency

My question is, what are the farmers going to do with the loans?  Buy more water?  From where? According to the USDA FSA emergency farm loans are to: “Restore or replace essential property. Pay all or part of production costs associated with the disaster year. Pay essential family living expenses. Reorganize the farming operation. Refinance certain debts, excluding real estate.”

Idaho’s drought isn’t just affecting farmers (by the way, Idaho farmers just saw a 4th straight year of record high revenues), it’s affecting recreation like river rafting, electrical power generation (caused by low water levels in the Snake River, of course Idaho Power will use it as an excuse to jack up the rates) and the dreaded wildfire season.

According to one report, ten years ago the cost of fighting wildfires in the U.S. were about 13% of U.S. Forest Service budget, in 2013 it hit 40%!

IDAHO WILDFIRE UPDATE, 20 SEPTEMBER 2012: ANOTHER SMOKEY DAY, STILL LEADING THE NATION, FIREFIGHTER ACCUSED OF STARTING FIRE!