It’s so hot the chickens are laying hard-boiled eggs.
The
early August heat wave that has smacked Central Oregon brings to mind corny old jokes
from late night TV.
For
days on end the region has suffered through temperatues in the 90s with some
touching and crossing 100, while a smokey grayish-brown haze from southern
Oregon and California wildfires has settled on the horizon to obscure mountain
views.
Besides
the discomfort, though, a more ominous consequence is developing throughout
Oregon, with the entire state classified as in “abnormally” dry or drought
conditions. Moderate drought or worse is designated for 90% of the state, and 67%,
including Central Oregon, is listed as in severe drought. Only northeast Oregon
and a small eastern part of the state has escaped a drought classification.
Reservoir
levels in the Deschutes River basin confirm the worsening situation, resulting
mostly from a low snowpack in the Cascades the past winter, early snowmelt into
tributaries feeding the basin and the extremely hot and dry summer.
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| Deschutes Basin reservoir levels Aug 13 |
The
water gauges for Wickiup Reservoir, the largest in the region, on August 13
showed a level of only 44,460 acre feet, slightly more than 50% below the same
date of 2017 and 51% under the average. The reservoir was only 21% full on the
date.
Wickiup
provides water for the basin’s North Unit irrigation project, NUID, which
serves by far the largest agricultural users of the region in Jefferson County
north of Redmond.
Crane
Prairie Reservoir, which empties into the Upper Deschutes above Wickiup, was
more than 17% below 2017 levels, but still nearly 17% above average and 68%
full. The reservoir serves the Central Oregon Irrigation District, COID, the
second largest water user in the basin.
A
May 2017 report by Headwaters Economics notes that NUID provides water for
approximately 60,000 acres and CUID to 45,000 acres, with the districts
together accounting for 84% of water diverted from the Deschutes River.
Whereas
NUID relies on the 200,000 acre feet of storage in Wickiup, COID has storage
rights in Crane Prairie for up to 26,000 acre feet. But COID also diverts water
directly from the Deschutes River using its senior water rights.
COID’s
average 304,195 acre feet of total irrigation diverted in the basin irrigates
an average of 44,784 acres, according to the economics report. NUID’s diversion
of 188,046 acre feet serves 58,868 acres.
The
report estimates that the North Unit, whose rights are “junior” to COID and
several other districts, has achieved an “efficiency” average of 93.8% in using
water through such conservatoin measures as lining canals, drip irrigations
systems, pressurized pumps and piping of laterals off main canals. COID’s
efficiency is 42.9%, the report notes.
With
the lowest estimated efficiency in the basin COID has been acting aggressively
to pipe its canal system and achieve other conservation goals, working through
a collaborative process with the Deschutes Basin Board of Control invoving also
NUID and other districts along with federal and state agencies.
Hanging
over the effort is the listing of the Oregon spotted frog as threatened under
the federal Endangered Species Act, as well as attempts to restore salmon and
steelhead runs disrupted by the 1960s
construction of the Round Butte and Pelton dams on the Deschutes below
its confluence with the Metolius and Crooked Rivers.
