Secondary highways in the Magic Valley are a mess. Milk, feed and manure trucks; fully loaded 18-wheelers; beet trucks, and interstate rigs dodging traffic congestion in Twin Falls are hammering our country roads into pebbles. And the Legislature, in its wisdom, declined to provide a dime's worth of additional funding to fix them last session.

Things are so bad that the Murtaugh Highway District, located in the heart of dairy country, may let some roads go back to gravel because it can't afford repairs. That could happen in the Wendell, Gooding, Jerome and Hillsdale districts, as well.

So what are the alternatives?

Most rural roads in Idaho are the responsibility of highway districts, which are supported through property taxes and vehicle registration fees. But there about 100 districts in the state, which means funding is fragmented and unequal.

The Twin Falls Highway District, for example, maintains its road network well, but it doesn't have the volume of big trucks on some of its roads that the Wendell andJerome districts do.

The Legislature could make up the difference with any of dozens of possible fees or sales tax transfers, but it's shown no appetite for doing so.

That leaves one realistic option: Owners of the trucks that break up the roads must pick up much of the tab for repairs.

Idaho already charges weight-based fees for trucks, but it's a standardized system not designed to fit the specific circumstances affecting secondary roads in the Magic Valley.

Higher taxes won't be popular with the powerful dairy industry and with its allies in the Legislature. But the facts are inescapable: A fully loaded milk truck can do as much damage to an asphalt surface - especially during spring break-up - as thousands of cars.

The industry could help extend the lives of highways by self-policing and education, especially when it comes to load limits.

But that's a short-term solution. Big Dairy collected at least $1 billion in revenue in south-central Idaho last year; it can afford to help maintain the infrastructure that keeps it - and the rest of the Magic Valley's agriculture economy - in business.