News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
A construction crew worked around heavy equipment blocking their path to move forward on the controversial piping of McKenzie Canyon's irrigation canal.
Sheriff's deputies made two arrests and a construction crew pulled pipe across disputed territory on Monday as a wrangle over piping the McKenzie Canyon irrigation canal turned confrontational.
Protesters determined to halt construction of the irrigation pipeline in McKenzie Canyon moved heavy equipment into the canal on Jan Daggett's property on Monday.
The move was the second time in less than a week that Daggett and her allies attempted to block excavation for the pipeline across her property. Last Thursday, construction crews working for Three Sisters Irrigation District pulled vehicles out of the ditch and proceeded with their work, digging under a backhoe and leaving it straddling the excavation.
On Monday, Daggett had a backhoe, a dump truck and several vehicles in the ditch. She also gathered some friends and allies to sit on the equipment and block passage.
"I'm going to stop these people doing any more damage to my property before I can get in front of a judge," Daggett told The Nugget.
Daggett has filed suit in Deschutes County Circuit Court, claiming that TSID does not have an easement to pipe across 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.
Preliminary hearings aren't scheduled until June.
The confrontation remained relatively peaceful until Monday afternoon, when two protesters - Timothy Alan Stroud, 49, and Susan Kay Brown, 48, both of Sunriver - were arrested for criminal mischief, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct.
According to a sheriff's office press release, "Stroud, Brown, and an unidentified female had lain down in the canal directly in the path of a large tracked excavator forcing it to stop. Once it stopped the three subjects climbed onto the tracks of the vehicle while it was still running. Once the protesters climbed onto the excavator the driver shut it down and walked away from the scene to await the arrival of sheriff's deputies. It was also reported that the unidentified female, who was reportedly very intoxicated, had tried to drive a van into the canal."
Stroud and Brown were arrested without incident. The unidentified female had left the scene prior to arrival of the deputies and she was not located.
The piping crew worked around some of the blocking vehicles on Monday, lifting a bucket on one piece of heavy equipment and laying pipe under it.
"We've got all the pipe in the ditch and now we're connecting up," TSID director Marc Thalacker told The Nugget.
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.
Daggett argues that the open canals are a vital wildlife habitat and benefit tourism through attracting birders and hikers. She also argues that the seepage the project is designed to eliminate is actually beneficial, recharging underground aquifers.
Daggett said Monday night that she would be contacting her attorney to determine next steps.
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.
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