By Mike Rogoway | Updated: Dec. 18, 2022 | Published: Dec. 17, 2022 | The Oregonian/OregonLive Google’s water use in The Dalles has nearly tripled in the past five years, and the company’s data centers now consume more than a quarter of all the water used in the city. That’s according to records released this week after the city settled …

By Emily Cureton Cook | July 19, 2022 | OPB In Oregon’s fastest-growing region, more residents are struggling to reach an affordable water supply. A developer’s quest to keep pumping tests what state officials are willing to do about it. Editor’s note: This is the third story in a series about how Oregon officials managing groundwater supplies have fueled crises …

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Jefferson Public Radio | By Alex Schwartz Published April 26, 2022 at 5:39 AM PDT The Klamath Basin provides a cautionary tale for Oregon about the need to plan more intentionally and sustainably with its shrinking water supply. Despite growing up on a ranch near John Day and living in the Klamath Basin for more than 20 years, Misty Buckley …

By Emily Cureton Cook (OPB) | March 28, 2022 5 a.m. Oregon has protected land at Summer Lake Wildlife Area since 1944. Water is another story. Under current water rights, vital springs could run dry within a generation. Editor’s note: This is the second story in an ongoing series about how Oregon officials managing groundwater supplies have fueled crises and …

By Emily Cureton Cook (OPB) | March 16, 2022 6 a.m. In Malheur County’s Cow Valley, state regulators have ignored known issues with overpumping groundwater, leaving the region at risk of economic and ecological damage that will be difficult to reverse. Editor’s note: This is the first story in an ongoing series about how Oregon officials managing groundwater supplies have …

By Rob Davis | The Oregonian/OregonLive | Published: Feb. 21, 2022, 5:32 p.m. After ignoring its decline for years, state agencies have pledged to help Lake Abert, Oregon’s only saltwater lake and a vital stop on the Pacific Flyway, which has run dry twice in the last eight years. In a Feb. 16 letter to environmental groups, the leaders of …

By Rob Davis | The Oregonian/OregonLive  | Published: Jan. 25, 2022, 7:00 a.m. State lawmakers and environmental groups responded to an investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive into the state’s failure to protect Lake Abert, Oregon’s only salt lake, by promising oversight hearings and calling for immediate action to restore the migratory bird stop that has run dry twice in the last …

By Rob Davis | The Oregonian/OregonLive | Published on Jan 16, 2022  When Oregon’s only saltwater lake mysteriously dried up in 2014, turning a vibrant landscape teeming with migratory birds into a desiccated, abandoned salt pan, state environmental regulators mobilized. Lake Abert, a 64-square-mile lake in south central Oregon’s high desert, had gone almost completely dry for the first time …

By BO EVANS | EW Scripps | bo.evans@scripps.com HORNBROOK, Calif. — The Iron Gate Dam, one of four dams on the Klamath River, will be removed in 2023. It will be the largest dam removal in U.S. history. For Pachomio Feliz, the waters of the Klamath River and Pacific are life. He’s a member of the Yurok Tribe. “This is …

By ANDREW SELSKY and MANUEL VALDES THE DALLES, Ore. (AP) — Conflicts over water are as old as history itself, but the massive Google data centers on the edge of this Oregon town on the Columbia River represent an emerging 21st century concern. Now a critical part of modern computing, data centers help people stream movies on Netflix, conduct transactions …

By Bryce Dole | East Oregonian | August 26, 2021 BOARDMAN — A coalition of environmental groups is calling on Gov. Kate Brown to reject a permit application for the proposed Easterday dairy in Boardman. In a press conference Tuesday, Aug. 24, leaders from the Stand Up for Factory Farms Coalition said the dairy will exacerbate a variety of environmental …

Klamath Basin drought: Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge Complex By Elizabeth Castillo (OPB) Broadcast: Tuesday, July 13 This week, David Miller from Oregon Public Broadcasting’s “Think Out Loud” interviewed WaterWatch’s own Southern Oregon Program Director, Jim McCarthy, about our longstanding work to protect and restore waterfowl and wetlands on the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges, then took a deep dive …

By Dawn Stover | Columbia Insight | May 6, 2021 Cody Easterday is still waiting for the Oregon Department of Agriculture to approve his application, submitted in June 2019, for a Confined Animal Feeding Operation near the city of Boardman (pop. 3,340), 165 miles east of Portland. Easterday, a 49-year-old rancher whose family owns a huge agricultural operation in Washington …

By Mateusz Perkowski | Capital Press | Jan. 8, 2021 Oregon irrigators may face complications from the commitment of about 1 million acre-feet of water behind Willamette Valley dams to in-stream environmental purposes. Until now, state water regulators have treated water released from the 13 dams as “live flows,” which can be accessed by irrigators with surface water rights in …

By Mateusz Perkowski | Capital Press | Jan. 8, 2021 Farmers, under new federal law, have gained access to about 328,000 acre-feet of water stored behind 13 dams in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. However, they’d be wise to wait until further regulatory processes are finished before installing irrigation structures to take advantage of the newly available water, experts say. “We’re not …

By Matuesz Perkowski | The Other Oregon | Dec. 24, 2020 Agriculture in Oregon’s Harney Basin faces a situation akin to being chased by an aggressive dog, according to farmer Mark Owens. Irrigators realize it’s going to hurt, he says, but they won’t know how much until it actually bites them in the ass. “Change is on the way and …

Gillian Flaccus | Associated Press | Nov. 11, 2020 A coalition of environmental and fishing groups are suing a water district in southern Oregon over an aging, privately owned dam that they say hinders the passage of struggling salmon populations in the pristine North Umpqua River. The lawsuit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Eugene, asks a judge to …

By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI | Capital Press | Oct 8, 2020 Critics of large dairies are asking Oregon water regulators to limit new groundwater pumping by such operations within 257 square miles of Umatilla and Morrow counties. A coalition of environmental groups and others called Stand Up to Factory Farms has submitted a petition asking the Oregon Water Resources Department to restrict …

by Brian Posewitz | June 13, 2020 | Register Guard The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers owns 13 reservoirs on major tributaries to the Willamette River, including well-known reservoirs such as Fern Ridge on the Long Tom, Lookout Point on the Middle Fork of the Willamette, Cougar on the South Fork of the McKenzie and Detroit on the North Fork …

WaterWatch of Oregon stands among those calling for racial justice and accountability after the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and countless other people of color at the hands of law enforcement and/or white supremacists. The brutal and horrific killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer compels us to express solidarity with black people across the …

Conservationist urges irrigation districts to focus on water markets by Michael Kohn | April 10, 2020 | Bend Bulletin For decades, Rob Rastovich relied on flood irrigation to water the hay fields on his family-owned ranch outside Bend. The system was archaic and wasted large amounts of water, which ran off the edge of his 200-acre ranch. Today his system is …

Environmental groups say the Army Corps of Engineers’ reallocation plan will hurt threatened fish species by Emily Green | March 20, 2020 | Street Roots  The Army Corps of Engineers has proposed a drastic cut to the volume of water stored among its 13 dams and reservoirs in the Willamette River Basin that goes to supporting fish flows. Environmentalists are …

By WW Staff | March 18, 2020 | Willamette Week   BUSINESSES SEEK TAX MEASURE RELIEF: Oregon business groups, facing crushing pressure from COVID-19 impacts, on March 17 proposed 14 steps the state could take to help. Among the biggest: “Delay implementation of the new corporate activities tax, at least for the first quarter of 2020, so those funds can be diverted …

by The Conservation Alliance | January 2020 | The Conservation Alliance: Rogue River from Uncage the Soul Productions on Vimeo WaterWatch of Oregon is proud of our role in the dam removal efforts happening along The Rogue River. Of course, many other organizations have played key roles in these projects. Some of these efforts have been highlighted in a short …

by Bill Poehler, Statesman Journal | January 2020 | The Statesman Journal The first time Anna Rankin went to the Scotts Mills Dam, she noticed crosses and flowers on the banks below the dam. When Rankin, the executive director of the Pudding River Watershed Council, asked about the markers, she learned there had been a number of deaths from people …

by Bill Poehler, Statesman Journal | December 2019 | The Statesman Journal Joel Rue welcomed a group of fellow farmers and friends into his home in Victor Point, located in a canyon between Silverton and Silver Falls State Park, in 2005. Over the next few hours, the farmers from around Mt. Angel explained how for decades they sought ways to …

by Jim McCarthy, WaterWatch Southern Oregon Program Director | Sept 2019 | The Osprey September 2019

by John DeVoe, WaterWatch Executive Director | 25 Sept 2019 | The Bend Source Weekly   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 …

by WaterWatch of Oregon Staff | 5 Aug 2019 | Bend Source Weekly On Sunday, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown issued a press release that House Bill 2437 is one of the bills that she may veto before Aug. 9. WaterWatch of Oregon is urging the Governor to indeed veto this bill. We also want to use this opportunity to clarify …

The state has done little to prevent water scarcity as climate change and population growth take hold by Emily Green | 5 Jul 2019 | StreetRoots 2015 was not a good year for water in Oregon. It was the third year in a row of drought. As spring and summer slogged on, 25 counties across the state entered into a state …

Recently, WaterWatch executive director John DeVoe sat down with Phil Busse, journalist and host of XRAY Radio’s “The Non-Profit Hour.” The two talked about all things water during a leisurely half-hour conversation that also included tidbits on Handel and James McMurtry’s “Levelland.” Click to listen to their conversation.

The two bills present a test for Gov. Kate Brown. By Nigel Jaquiss | 12 Jun 2019 | Willamette Week Last month, Portland commemorated the 71st anniversary of the Vanport Flood, which killed 15 people and displaced 40,000 from a black neighborhood in North Portland. But state officials may not have learned all the lessons of that disaster. Vanport was …

FOR 30 YEARS, POWERFUL OREGON INTERESTS INCLUDING CITIES, FARMERS, INDUSTRY AND ENVIRONMENTALISTS HAVE BEEN SLUGGING IT OUT FOR ACCESS TO THE WATER. Bill Poehler and Tracy Loew, Salem Statesman Journal Published 6:00 a.m. PT May 29, 2019 | Updated 9:21 a.m. PT May 30, 2019 Billions of gallons of water have been hidden behind the Willamette River Basin’s 13 dams …