POTOMAC — This year, the Blackfoot River set multiple records for low flows, compounding another year of drought. The impacts rippled throughout the valley. Ranchers, like Denny Iverson, were short hay and sold off cattle to cope.

“It just didn't rain. It rained around us, you know, but Potomac and the Blackfoot in general was just under an umbrella all summer,” Iverson said.

Iverson is a self-described “retired rancher who still ranches.” For 50 years, he and his family have been running cattle in Potomac. For decades, they have been using Union Creek to irrigate their fields, always leaving water for fish and people downstream. This year, they had to stop before the end of June.

“About a month and a half after we quit irrigating, the creek actually dried up, and I hadn't seen that in

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