The drought monitor map published Thursday shows most of Western Oregon still in “abnormally dry” conditions and parts of Central Oregon in moderate or exceptional drought. While high levels of drought persist, they are less severe compared to a year ago when half the state was in the highest category of drought.
On Friday, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality appointed new members for the Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area committee and helped launch an effort to restructure how the group operates.
Recent snowfall has prompted the Deschutes National Forest to close the roads to Tumalo Falls and Three Creek Lake. Gates along both roads will be locked at 8 a.m. Monday , according to a news release from the Forest Service.
The Deschutes National Forest has completed reconstruction work on the Wyeth Boat Launch on the upper portion of the Deschutes River.
Central Oregon’s beer scene has grown up while the region’s water woes have intensified. As local water managers seek to balance the growing demand for a shrinking resource, the brewing industry has come under the microscope.
Somewhere between 300 and 600 gallons of oil has leaked into the Snake River from a turbine system at eastern Washington’s Little Goose Dam, according to the Army Corps of Engineers.
Based in Houston, Next Renewables wants to build the largest renewable diesel refinery on the West Coast at Port Westward, an industrial park owned by the Port of Columbia County near Clatskanie, about 60 miles northwest of Portland.
An international coalition of researchers says in a report published this week that the Earth’s vital signs have worsened to the point that “humanity is unequivocally facing a climate emergency.”
The rule changes are a result of the mediated and groundbreaking Private Forest Accord that brought together representatives from conservation groups and the timber industry. The changes will impact timber harvest activities on more than 10 million acres of private and non-federal forests in the state.
