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Snake River Plains

Over the course of 35 years the State of Idaho went from selling the land along the Snake River for $1 an acre – basically begging farmers to make the desert bloom – to buying the water rights back for almost $1,000 an acre. What’s left at Bell Rapids is a post-apocalyptic landscape of sheet metal barns with telephone numbers still scrawled on the doors, houses with boots under beds and paystubs in the kitchen, four million pounds of dry steel pipe that used to carry Snake River water, and enormous new wind turbines. These images were made near Hagerman, Idaho for Facing Climate Change.

Facing Climate Change (2011)

Windmills cast shadows across an abandoned agricultural development, near Hagerman, Idaho. The Bell Rapids Project developed 25,000 acres of irrigated farmland high above the Snake River when water was cheap and plentiful. As competition for that water grew, irrigation costs rose and crop prices fell, making irrigation at Bell Rapids harder to justify.
Windmills cast shadows across the abandoned irrigation pivots on the Bell Rapids agirultural development, near Hagerman, Idaho.
Windmills cast shadows across the abandoned irrigation pivots on the Bell Rapids agricultural development, near Hagerman, Idaho.
Detail of abandoned fields near the Bell Rapids agricultural development, near Hagerman, Idaho.
Dryland cattle and wind turbines now occupy land that once grew potatoes and sugar beets. Near Hagerman, Idaho.
The Bell Rapids Project developed 25,000 acres of irrigated farmland high above the Snake River when water was cheap and plentiful. As competition for that water grew, irrigation costs rose and crop prices fell, making irrigation at Bell Rapids harder to justify.
Cattle forage across an abandoned homestead on the Bell Rapids agricultural development, near Hagerman, Idaho.
The Bell Rapids Project developed 25,000 acres of irrigated farmland high above the Snake River when water was cheap and plentiful. As competition for that water grew, irrigation costs rose and crop prices fell, making irrigation at Bell Rapids harder to justify.
The Bell Rapids Project developed 25,000 acres of irrigated farmland high above the Snake River when water was cheap and plentiful. As competition for that water grew, irrigation costs rose and crop prices fell, making irrigation at Bell Rapids harder to justify.
The Bell Rapids Project developed 25,000 acres of irrigated farmland high above the Snake River when water was cheap and plentiful. As competition for that water grew, irrigation costs rose and crop prices fell, making irrigation at Bell Rapids harder to justify.
A dam along the Snake River below the Bell Rapids agricultural development, near Hagerman, Idaho.
Abandoned potato sheds in the Bell Rapids agricultural development, near Hagerman, Idaho. The state purchased the project's water rights to support salmon and steelhead recovery.
The Snake River near Hagerman, Idaho.
Snake River plains east of Boise, Idaho.
The Snake River downstream of Hagerman, Idaho.
Irrigation pivot along the Snake River, Idaho.
Dormant irrigation pivot along the Snake River.
Detail of tractor and farmland.
Detail of dry farmland near the Snake River.
Detail of dry farmland near the Snake River.
Cattle feedlot east of Boise, Idaho.
Cattle feedlot east of Boise, Idaho.
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