Jefferson County farmers and ranchers will receive a slightly higher allotment of water this summer from the North Unit Irrigation District due to favorable weather conditions over the past two months.
This week, at least one Oregon media outlet reported on our efforts to obtain records about the top residential water users in Bend, and how Avion Water is blocking that effort in court.
With the thousands of miles of quality salmon habitat in the upper Columbia River, a restored chinook run there could add significantly to the number of anadromous fish in the entire basin. The tribes of the upper Columbia River Basin — the Coeur d’Alene, Spokane, and Colville, along with first nations in Canada — aim to do just that.
The latest round of wet storms in a cool, rainy late spring was sending rivers and creeks rising Saturday across the Northwest and on the High Desert, where Tumalo Creek and the Deschutes River near Bend were running high, swift and muddy.
The amount of precipitation that fell in the Central Oregon Cascades last month was the highest since the late 1990s, offering some relief to the parched forested mountains ahead of fire season.
The Water Resources Development Act of 2022 approved by the House of Representatives Wednesday includes a lengthy section called “Columbia River Basin Restoration” and would require an inter-agency assessment of the four lower Snake River dams’ impact on fish and wildlife.
Players in the Deschutes River Basin got creative with centuries-old water laws this year as two irrigation districts took a step toward sharing water.
An aging network of pipes and water treatment systems on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation is one step closer to receiving a multimillion dollar package to fund badly needed repairs. Indian Health Service, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, announced it has approved $27 million for eight infrastructure projects on the reservation. Nearly half the funds are set aside to replace a water treatment facility.
The pond is full again at Upingaksraq Spring Alaska Schreiner’s high desert farm. It’s a welcome sight for Schreiner, who owns Sakari Farms north of Bend, Ore. Last summer, as drought punished Central Oregon, Schreiner’s irrigation district stopped delivering water. She watched as the pond gradually disappeared, leaving a mud puddle behind.
