Tod Heisler at Central Oregon Land Watch wrote a really good post for their blog, “Drought and the Deschutes: Looking at the same river twice“. It succinctly covers a topic I write about a lot: the dramatic difference in flows above and below Bend during irrigation season. I highly recommend it. Here’s some more color to this discussion: many local groups promote the Middle Deschutes as a success story. In fact, just yesterday I was in a meeting where a local prominent NGO and a government employee did just that. Once again, I lost my cool. Historically, the Middle Deschutes as it flows through Bend should be somewhere over 1,200 CFS right now. A few days ago it was at 62 CFS. That’s 5%* of the historical flow. True, 62 CFS is better than nothing, but we have a very long way to go before this stretch of the river is healthy again.

(*Yes, I made a stupid math error in the first version of this post, now corrected. I need a proof reader / editor sometimes.)