The fish ladder project — completed earlier this month after two years of construction — was a long-anticipated milestone for fish making their way through Central Oregon’s network of rivers and streams as part of their life cycle.
A controversial water use plan that will guide how water in the Deschutes basin is allocated to irrigators over the next 30 years has been supported by the Deschutes County Commission.
The agricultural community in Central Oregon — farmers, local businesses, and irrigation districts — along with dozens of partners, has spent the past decade collectively rowing the proverbial boat to improve the health of the Deschutes River while preserving family farms and our rural way of life.
Agreement reached that will finally provide city of Prineville the 5,100 acre-feet of water promised in Bowman Dam bill
L ast June, Portland General Electric released a comprehensive, multiyear water quality study of Lake Billy Chinook, the rivers that supply it and the lower Deschutes River into which water is released.
The Deschutes River can flow near Bend at a roiling 980,000 gallons a minute in the summer. But those spectacular summer flows can tell a misleading tale about the river.
A draft habitat conservation plan designed to aid several species listed under the federal Endangered Species Act, while also providing crucial water to Central Oregon farmers, will be posted in the Federal Register for review, Friday, Oct. 4, by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The posting will open a 45-day public comment period for the draft HCP.
The North Unit Irrigation District and project partners will hold a public meeting later this month on their canal-piping proposal to modernize aging infrastructure to conserve water, reduce energy use, improve operational efficiencies, improve water quality and enhance fish and wildlife habitat in the Deschutes and Crooked rivers, federal regulators said Wednesday.
A habitat conservation plan aimed at protecting several species while shielding farmers from legal liability in the Deschutes River Basin will be formally announced this week.
Most of the Columbia River will close to all recreational salmon and steelhead fishing, with the exception of the Hanford Reach.
Five years from now, stream flows in the Deschutes River Basin may look more like they did at the turn of the 20th century.
A recent Bulletin article described how tens of millions of dollars of federal taxpayer funds are slated to be given to Central Oregon irrigation districts to pay for piping their canals.
On Oct. 4, a long awaited proposal from eight irrigation districts and the City of Prineville called a Habitat Conservation Plan (Plan) will be made public. The Plan, and an accompanying draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) will outline and analyze the actions that the irrigation districts propose to take in return for 30 years of immunity under the Endangered Species Act for killing and harming imperiled species. Much of the carnage results from the districts using the Upper Deschutes as an irrigation ditch. The Plan is a big deal for the Deschutes Basin, giving the districts a get out of jail free card for 30 years.
There is a genuinely compelling case to be made for the calling our salmon and steelhead situation a crisis, and Yancy Lind’s well-written opinion piece, “The grim outlook for Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead,” tackles that subject head on.
There is a genuinely compelling case to be made for the calling our salmon and steelhead situation a crisis, and Yancy Lind’s well-written opinion piece, “The grim outlook for Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead,” tackles that subject head on.
Bonneville Dam is the lowest of many on the Columbia River. All salmon and steelhead moving upstream to rivers like the Deschutes, John Day, Grande Ronde and further into Washington and Idaho pass through Bonneville where they are counted. As of Sept. 11th, a total of 123,504 fall chinook and 60,867 (including 31,946 unclipped) summer steelhead have been counted. This may sound like a lot, but it is a fraction of their historical numbers.
For the second year in a row, Madras farmer Phil Fine has left a quarter of his fields fallow amid water restrictions caused by low levels at Wikiup Reservoir.
Though preventing leaky canals from losing water doesn’t seem like a particularly controversial idea, irrigators in Central Oregon have found out otherwise.
A recent guest opinion told Source readers we should consider "feasible alternatives" for salmon reintroduction above the Pelton Round Butte Hydroelectric Project—the facility Portland General Electric and the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs co-own and operate near Madras. But the alternative suggested would not meet the goals of the reintroduction project: to restore self-sustaining and harvestable runs of Chinook, sockeye and steelhead to the upper Deschutes Basin.
Ochoco Irrigation District is planning a number of projects to upgrade its aging infrastructure, including the conversion of open canals into an underground, closed-pipe system, and the installation of new pump stations.