Immediately after making my River & Drought Outlook post on Monday I contacted the Bend Bulletin and told them that “there has to be a story in there for you”. Today they did publish a story about the rapidly diminishing snowpack but, not surprisingly, completely omitted any mention of impacts on fish & wildlife or water recreation. The story was all about what it means for local business, irrigation districts, and fires. It’s no wonder that the paper is bankrupt (again), they just don’t seem to understand the mindset of the rapidly changing local population. We have have a lifestyle economy, people want to recreate outdoors, and healthy rivers and lakes are a key element of that.
Category: Global Warming
River and Drought Outlook
Headwaters of the Deschutes at Little Lava Lake on 5/12/19. A dry river.
Without a doubt, current water conditions are dramatically improved from the beginning of the year. All is not well, however, and work to conserve water and improve river flows should remain at the forefront of every angler’s agenda if we hope to continue to enjoy our sport at a high level. As of yesterday, Little Lava Lake is very low, is not spilling into the upper Deschutes, and there is essentially no snow to be seen in that area.Read More »
Crooked River Flows
Yesterday, Jeff Perin of The Fly Fishers Place in Sisters had a Facebook post about flows out of Prineville Reservoir into the Crooked River being too high. They are certainly too high for any fishing. The flows into the reservoir are 1,625 cfs but the flows out are 2,662 cfs. So, what gives? I have not talked to anyone at the Bureau of Reclamation (BoR) about this, and am loathe to defend them given their record of almost never adequately considering fish and wildlife in their release decisions, but I don’t think that the current release level into the Crooked is too high for the current conditions – although it certainly reached what could be disastrous levels for trout just a few days ago.Read More »
Bend Bulletin Letters on Water
Today the Bend Bulletin published an opinion piece I wrote after they previously rejected a more pointed version. I was not surprised by the rejection, as that version pointed out that the success of irrigation districts as a special interest group comes from extensive contributions to politicians, which is not the sort of thing that The Bulletin wants to touch. Thankfully, they did publish my softened column as well as this excellent letter yesterday from George Wuerthner which also addresses local water issues.
Water Shortage Confirmed
Today the Bulletin ran a story echoing what I have been writing about for some time, there will be water shortages this summer for some irrigation districts. Unfortunately, the wrong ones in my opinion. North Unit Irrigation District supplies real farmers around Madras who are going to have to fallow some lands. Central Oregon Irrigation District has senior water rights but primarily supplies hobby farmers and will see no shortages. This is just wrong.
Upper Basin Anadromous Fry Stocking
This spring marks the last stocking of fry as part of the upper Deschutes Basin salmon and steelhead reintroduction effort. Yesterday I was part of the crew helping with the final chinook salmon fry stocking and backpacked fry into the lower Crooked River canyon as well as where Alder Springs meets Whychus Creek not far from the middle Deschutes. As I wrote about here, the reintroduction effort has been a disappointment for many reasons one of which is the unsuccessful fry stocking effort and a new approach is needed.Read More »
Another View on Canal Piping: Water Security for Oregon
On March 19 the Bulletin ran a front-page story about Senator Merkely helping local irrigation districts “re-plumb” Central Oregon. Piping local irrigation canals is needed and on the surface this is excellent news. The devil is always in the details, however. Read More »
