Streamflow Restoration Accomplishments in the Deschutes Basin

Since 1996, the communities of the Deschutes Basin have helped drive some of the most ambitious streamflow restoration efforts in the Northwestern United States.

Over the past three decades, DRC and its partners have restored more than 350 cubic feet per second of flow throughout the Deschutes Basin — that's over 157,080 gallons per minute returned to rivers and streams that need it most.

This work addresses a challenge that has shaped the basin for over a century. By the early 1900s, irrigation diversions had significantly reduced summer flows in the Middle Deschutes River and tributaries like Whychus Creek, the Crooked River, and Trout Creek. The addition of storage reservoirs in the mid-1900s further altered the basin's natural flow patterns. Left unaddressed, these changes threatened the fish, wildlife, and ecosystems that depend on healthy rivers.

Working alongside irrigation districts, water managers, and basin partners, DRC has employed voluntary market-based programs and water conservation projects to steadily reverse that trajectory — restoring flow mile by mile, year by year.

"A healthy watershed is the foundation of everything we value here in Central Oregon. We can have a river that supports agriculture, recreation, fish and wildlife, and the communities that have grown up alongside it. That future is something we build together." - Kate Fitzpatrick, Executive Director

Flow Restoration Progress Over the Years

We measure streamflow restoration progress through an increase in cubic feet per second (CFS) throughout the Deschutes River Basin. Through collaborating with basin partners, DRC restores streamflow through water rights leasing (light blue), water management (yellow), permanent water rights transfers from irrigation to streams (dark blue), and water conservation projects such as piping leaking canals and creating more efficient irrigation practices (medium blue and orange). This progress over the last three decades was made possible by engaged community support and enduring partnerships.

Grants and project funding cover much of this on-the-ground conservation work, but the invisible infrastructure of conservation — the hours invested to build trusted partnerships, collaborate with diverse stakeholders, advance innovative common-sense policy, and engage with the community is what makes streamflow restoration possible. It is the support of the community that allows DRC to leverage these significant state and federal investments to drive meaningful impact in the Deschutes Basin.