News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
"Whiskey is for drinking. Water is for fighting over."
Its an old saying in the American West, but it's as true now as it was 150 years ago. The fighting is now done - mostly - by lawyers in a courtroom instead of gunmen on the range, but passions rise as high as they ever did.
Jan Daggett and her McKenzie Canyon neighbor Doris Kozlovic have filed suit to stop the Three Sisters Irrigation District's $5.8 million McKenzie Canyon Piping Project. There are three properties in the canyon that have not yet been crossed by pipe.
The lawsuit itself is a
relatively simple argument over easements: Daggett says the district does not have an easement where it can extend piping over her property; TSID says they do, based on an 1891 right-of-way that predates the land granting of the properties in the canyon, between 1916 and 1924.
Marc Thalacker, director of TSID, says that the recent Swalley Irrigation District decision affecting the Bend-Tumalo area district has settled the right of an irrigation district to pipe its easements.
The deeper dispute is about values: whether the water and power conservation created by the project should trump the wildlife and scenic values of 100-year-old waterflows in the open canals of the canyon northeast of Sisters.
The piping project is part of a region-wide trend toward enclosing open ditches to prevent seepage and retain water instream.
Thalacker says that the project's returning six cubic feet per second of flow to Whychus Creek is vital to pushing over the threshold where steelhead can return to the creek and thrive. He also says that the pressurization the piping provides will save 3 million kilowatt-hours per year in energy expended to pump irrigation water, a factor that has been an important consideration since the conception of the project.
Thalacker, who owns one of the five farms and ranches at the end of the line at Lower Bridge, says that "there is no question that the benefits of the project truly outweigh the (detriments)."
Daggett disagrees.
"I'm just afraid that (piping) is shortsighted, just like the hydroelectric dams on our rivers were shortsighted," she told The Nugget. "It's true that irrigation demands used to lower the water levels in Whychus Creek horribly, but that has been corrected over the past 20 years, without irreparable and expensive piping. I'm not saying piping is bad everywhere, but someone needs to study all the impacts, and no one is."
Daggett argues that the quasi-natural stream established over 100 years of use has become valuable wildlife habitat and treasured ground for hikers and birders, contributing to local tourism.
"I don't see why this fish effort and grass-seed growing trumps everything else in Central Oregon," Daggett said. "The area is a major deer and elk crossing, and we've been seeing an increase in fox the past year or two, nesting golden and bald eagles always hunt cliffs, red tail hawks nesting on my land, and a tremendous and diverse amount of bird life, from blue birds to kingfishers."
She also argues that seepage is not "lost" water - that it feeds the underground aquifers that go into the Deschutes River and charges domestic wells. She is concerned about piping's impact on both phenomena.
For his part, Thalacker notes that the farms at Lower Bridge are also a significant wildlife habitat, hosting large herds of deer and elk and many raptors. And he says that concerns about farming in the area shouldn't be minimized.
Farmers at Lower Bridge grow hay, sugar beet, mustard, carrot seed and grass seed among other crops.
"Sustainable farming is a big deal to a lot of our family farmers down there," he said. "If she were to stop us (piping) it would be terrible. There's over $1 million in crops raised down at Lower Bridge."
He describes the farmers as "furious" at the lawsuit.
The piping project has been underway above and below Daggett's property in the canyon. Her suit seeks an injunction to stop the project and to require that flow across her property from the pipes above it run at a natural rate, not at a pressurized rate, which would cause erosion.
Thalacker said that it is impossible to leave parts of the irrigation canals open while others are piped.
"The pipe is not engineered to function not connected," he said.
Water is scheduled to start flowing through the pipe on April 16; the first court action in the suit is not expected until June.
Thalacker said the lawsuit "can't stop the project" and that piping of the disputed areas will start soon, regardless of the legal action.
"We're backfilling now, right now, so soon," he said. "Probably within a week
or so."
Opponents have occasionally blocked access with heavy equipment, prompting calls to the sheriff's office. Thalacker said the sheriff's office will be asked to intervene if that happens while the district is moving forward on the piping.
The dispute between Daggett and some of her neighbors and Thalacker and TSID has smoldered and flared over the past six years. Several attempts to reach an agreement between the parties for mitigation have fallen through. Daggett sought to buy water rights, seeking to be included in the district. But she said back in September 2005 that Thalacker told her she would not be voted in unless she signed a document she characterizes as a "gag order" preventing her from working with her neighbors in opposition to the project.
Daggett says that promises made to mitigate and minimize impacts have "been taken off the table by district manager Thalacker" and she says that the construction of the project has been rough on the terrain.
Thalacker said that TSID will rehabilitate the area when the project is finished.
"We will come back in, we'll grade everything and plant it to dryland grasses," he said.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
Reader Comments(0)