Oregon Public Broadcast recently ran a story, “Solutions to Oregon’s drought could be found in the Deschutes Basin”, that had some good information but also errors and misleading statements that need to be addressed. Like most articles on water in the Deschutes Basin, it provided a false equivalence between the Upper Deschutes and the entire Deschutes River. “And yet, as a megadrought grips the West, the Deschutes Basin has rebounded from dire straits in the early 2000s. Today, conservation measures are leaving 10 times more water in the river than was protected for Mother Nature in 2002.” (Really?*) While it is true that the Upper Deschutes (headwaters to Bend) has seen an increase in flows, the Middle and Lower Deschutes are not seeing any benefit from piping.
The entire 252 miles of the Deschutes River suffers from various environmental issues including lower than natural flows and elevated temperatures. Only the Upper Deschutes, less than one third of the river, will see benefits from canal piping. The ugly fact is that during irrigation season the Middle Deschutes is periodically lowered to levels that are lethal to fish and the aquatic insects they rely on for food. These reduced flows and elevated temperatures impact the Lower Deschutes as well. Discussion of this is missing in the OPB article.
I have years of posts documenting the ongoing devastation occurring to the Middle Deschutes. Here are a few:
The Middle Deschutes is still an irrigation ditch
Bad news for fish in the Crooked and Middle Deschutes Rivers: CORRECTED
Irrigation season in full swing, rivers getting killed (again)
Finally, while the Deschutes Basin Habitat Conservation Plan is mentioned in the article it is not given due credit. There is coordination between irrigation districts and some support from NGOs, but as someone who has been involved with this activity for well over a decade, there is no doubt that the real credit for the progress to date is the HCP. Without the legal requirement to increase winter flows in the Upper Deschutes River there would be no meaningful cooperation. The truth of this statement is self-evident. If the health of the entire river were valued additional water would flow past Bend and not be diverted. Unfortunately, the HCP only requires increased flows in the Upper Deschutes and the irrigation districts are only doing what they are being forced to do.
Another misleading statement in the article reads, “Fish and wildlife have also benefited, like the steelhead, Chinook salmon or redband trout returning to certain tributaries of the Middle Deschutes Basin that used to run almost dry most summers.” It is true that decades ago the Middle Deschutes was in even worse shape and in one stretch it would sometimes go completely dry in the summer. That is no longer the case, but little additional progress has been made for many years. Further, the return of a very small number of steelhead and chinook to Whychus Creek, a tributary of the Middle Deschutes near Lake Billy Chinook, is due to the efforts of Portland General Electric to reintroduce these anadromous fish to the Upper Deschutes Basin. Canal piping has nothing to do with it.
Unfortunately, misleading articles on local water issues are all too common. Here’s a recent one from the Bulletin.
*: “10 times more water”? I’d love to see the math on that. It is true that during the winter the flows are a minimum of 100 cfs, but that’s 5 times more than the 20 cfs that used to occur in very low water years. During irrigation season there is no increase in flows in the Upper Deschutes. In fact, the goal is to reduce the unnaturally high flows in the Upper Deschutes during irrigation season.
Central Oregon Informed Angler 