SCID intends to pipe Fryrear irrigation ditch

The Fryrear ditch will be piped next year.

The Fryrear ditch, an irrigation canal serving 10 farms in the Cloverdale area, will be piped.

Running the water in a pipe instead of an open canal will save approximately three cubic feet per second, or 1,347 gallons of water per minute, according to Marc Thalacker, manager of the Squaw Creek Irrigation District.

Half of the saved water will be returned to Squaw Creek, Thalacker said.

"We'll probably get pipe delivery in March or April, so won't be able to get started until this fall," Thalacker said on February 22. "We are going to pipe just shy of four miles."

The section to be piped runs from the SCID headgate off the main canal, with 9,000 feet in the Deschutes National Forest near Harrington Loop, through the Black Diamond Ranch and across Highway 20.

"We are working with some of the landowners to protect trees and go around, and looking to pipe along rodeo grounds to avoid disturbing trees on the ditch," Thalacker said.

"It will take all of (next) fall and most of the spring. We (plan) completion mid-April, 2003. I think we will be okay," Thalacker said.

The piping will be challenging because the route is very winding, Thalacker said.

The $270,000 project is being paid for largely with grants, with SCID providing in-kind contributions of labor.

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation will give $25,000, the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board is contributing $120,000 and the Deschutes Resource Conservancy is providing $125,000.

Several property owners served by the Fryrear ditch who were originally opposed to the piping have dropped their objections, according to Thalacker. A meeting between the concerned homeowners, SCID, DRC and OWEB was held at the end of January.

Patti Little, who had opposed piping, said "We felt we needed to be responsible land owners and listen to the experts, who were telling us what they had in the way of results of piping the other ditches. Our Fryrear ditch needed to be piped," Little said.

"There is going to be a loss of watershed to the animals, but they (DRC and OWEB) didn't have the same concern over the environment created over the last 100 years with the ditches," said Little.

Little said communication about the project was very badly handled by SCID manager Thalacker, but that representatives from OWEB and DRC "were very gracious and patient in answering our questions."

Little said she and her husband would sign the piping agreement if SCID dissolved the Fryrear subdistrict formed to get around minority homeowner objections to the project.

The Fryrear piping is part of a larger effort to return water to Squaw Creek for fish habitat, according to Thalacker.

At one time there were runs of steelhead in the stream as far as the City of Sisters. There was also a population of bull trout.

The river has run dry through Sisters because of irrigation for many decades.

Last year there was a little more water as a result of eliminating a ditch on the Deggendorfer property on Camp Polk Road, by moving the Deggendorfer diversion, and going from flood to sprinkler irrigation on that land.

SCID has also put a section of the Cloverdale ditch in a pipe, saving another 3 cfs, which will be seen in Squaw Creek this year.

"Now we are starting to get up there. Last year there was between two and three cfs left in the stream because of the drought. This year we are looking for between six and seven cfs," Thalacker said.

"If we can find funds to pipe the lower section from McKenzie Reservoir to lower bridge, we could put another 6 cfs in, and then we would have some pretty good stream flow," Thalacker said.