Idaho water managers will return a below-average volume of water to the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer for the second consecutive year due to low snowpack in the mountains. The state Water Resource Board in each of the past eight years has worked with canal companies and others to recharge the aquifer between irrigation seasons. The annual average is 248,000 acre-feet after equal numbers of high and low snowpack years. The board's target is 250,000 acre-feet. Last year’s total was 160,000 acre-feet, and “unless we get a heavy snowpack, that’s probably what we are going to do this year, so that average is going to go down,” said Wesley Hipke, who manages the board’s recharge program.