Construction happens this winter to fix phase two of the Boise Whitewater Park

BOISE, Idaho — The J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Family Foundation Phase Two of the Boise Whitewater Park opened in 2019, but the expert wave has never worked as intended.

This week engineers performed fish salvage and began the process of diverting the Boise River into the Farmer's Union Canal so they can make changes this winter.

"The hope is that by February they will be out of the river before the spring run-off starts and we will have a wave that will be more usable for all of our kayakers and surfers that enjoy that part of the river," said Doug Holloway, the Boise Parks and Recreation Director.

Over the past three years Boise Parks and Rec have held monitored sessions on the expert wave because as flows change a dangerous keeper hole develops behind the wave.

McMillen Inc. is an engineering firm out of Boise and they will make some changes to attempt to fix that this winter. The modified design will feature a six panel flash board instead of a four panel and they will also install an Obermmeyer Gate downstream of the wave.

This area used to be a diversion dam filled with concrete and rebar that made this part of the Boise River navigable. Phase Two of the Whitewater Park aimed to fix that while also working as flood mitigation and irrigation for the Farmer's Union Canal.

"We still have to make sure Farmer's Union gets the water that they are supposed to be getting by law so there are a lot of factors that in play," said Holloway. "There are a number of permits that we had to get in order to do this construction and that's why it has taken us two years to actually get to a point where we can get back into the river and actually get the construction done."

Even as we draw closer to winter you can still find surfers up on Phase One of the Whitewater Park shredding it up as the popularity of surfing in the Boise River has increased substantially over the years.

"I'm one of those new surfers as I started about two years ago," said Mike Di Donato. "I got hooked right away and tt wasn't until this past spring when I had a few buddies around here say dude you got to try Phase Two. It's a gnarly and getting on there is so different and that's why you will see lines forming when it's running."

The kayakers I talked to want to see a redesign of the natural rock feature below the expert wave. That was intended to be a freestyle wave, but it is too shallow for kayakers to perform loops, cartwheels and other tricks.

Holloway tells us there will be minor adjustments to the natural rock features, but he says if the redesign of the expert wave works that will solve that problem as well.

"Most of the issues we have had with those will be corrected once we get the adjustable wave fixed," said Holloway. "We believe we will get more flow coming into that first drop."

This project will not cost taxpayers any money as the City of Boise paid for a workable wave and never got it so they didn't sign off on the project. Kayakers and surfers are hoping this time around it works.

"If they are able to get the expert wave going full-time it is going to just be another cool thing to shred out there," said Di Donato.