Many of you may have heard about a recent announcement from US Rep. Greg Walden that he is going to introduce legislation concerning Bowman Dam and the Crooked River.  Nearly all of the conservation groups and angling clubs have been tracking this issue closely, meeting with representatives from Walden's office, staff representing Senators Wyden and Merkley who are also planning to introduce bills, the City of Prineville, and officials from local irrigation districts.

This is an extremely important issue for the current fish in the system and the efforts to successfully reintroduce steelhead and salmon in the upper Deschutes basin.   

Here is information that you might find interesting and useful:

• The facility (Bowman Dam and Prineville Reservoir) was constructed in 1968 for the purpose of providing flood control and water for local irrigators.  Fish and wildlife, recreation, and municipal needs were not considered as part of the project purpose (however, there were minimal flows of 10cfs provided for fish and wildlife).  A large portion of water behind the dam was not allocated for any purpose, making this a unique situation in the west.  Following construction, The Bureau of Reclamation and several local business groups recognized the need to provide management for the other purposes.  As early as 1972, efforts were underway to reauthorize the project purposes to allow water allocation to support fishery needs.  To date, these efforts have been unsuccessful.
   
• Over the years, Ochoco Irrigation District and the Bureau of Reclamation have been flexible in providing higher flows (up to 75cfs) than the currently legally required 10cfs.  However, these flow releases are uncertain, and are even more uncertain considering current efforts to guarantee water to the City, and to modify existing irrigation contracts from proportional allocations to first-fill rights, an approach which will further constrain flexibility in water management.
   
• Representatives from Trout Unlimited and others have advocated various approaches that would include provisions for improvements to downstream flow, but despite these efforts, we are concerned legislation currently under consideration ignores ecological and fishery needs and fails to provide any tangible benefits to the lower river.

Below is a list outlining the principles developed by the City and the Irrigation Districts along with our comments.  Although no formal legislation has been introduced this provides a clearer view of the current thinking of the City and Irrigators.

1. Move the Wild & Scenic boundary approximately ¼ mile downstream from Bowman Dam. This will allow a "run of the river" hydro power plant to be installed at the base of the dam.  We have no real problem with this suggestion but need to make sure the boundary movement does not create new risk to critical spawning areas downstream of the dam. 
    
2. Allocate 5,100 acre-feet of the currently unallocated water to the City of Prineville. This is equivalent to 7 CFS.  In the context of a balanced proposal (meeting interests of the city, the irrigators and fish and wildlife), we support allocating up to 5100 acre feet of water to the City of Prineville for use as groundwater mitigation for future needs. 
    
3. Give the irrigators "first fill" rights to the water.  This proposal would modify the irrigators contract with the BOR to eliminate the current proportional management approach and replace it with a new absolute priority approach, assuring the irrigators they will have their contracts met fully each year and prioritized above all other uses.  Given the large portion of unallocated water behind the dam this would normally have no impact. But, in low water years the irrigators will always get their water before anyone else, potentially at the detriment of fish and wildlife.  This is a controversial change and a significant issue for fish and wildlife concerns.
    
4. Authorization of a comprehensive, interdisciplinary study for the Crooked River and Bowman Dam to analyze the various options to optimize utilization of the reservoir and the river.  There is no funding allocated for the study, no timeline for the study, and no guarantee conclusions from the study will be acted upon.   Although there are weaknesses in the request we support a study requirement in the bill.  The study should include an unconstrained evaluation of ecological flow needs below Bowman Dam.  Additional study should evaluate water supply and availability.  The results of these studies should be applied to develop a water management plan that includes an approach to managing potential conflicts in dry years. 

While we agree with several concepts in the principles form the City and irrigation Districts, we believe the overall proposal goes beyond what is necessary to meet the needs and interests as they have been presented by these groups and does not lead to a balanced approach.  Most notably, the principles currently omit any language related to water for fish - an absolutely critical element of any overall legislative proposal.

Trout Unlimited as well as group like NW Steelheaders, American River, WaterWatch, Central Oregon Flyfishers, Native Fish Society and others are in the process of formulating a legislative proposal aimed at meeting the multiple interests and needs.  TU does not disagree with many of the principles proposed by the City of Prineville and the Irrigation Districts but we do want protections built into the legislation for the fish. Our statement of Principles concerning the Crooked River and Bowman Dam can be downloaded in PDF format by clicking here, or grabbing it from the bottom of this article.

These documents are intended to help inform you of the current issues being discussed.  I hope these will help provide context for our upcoming discussion.  We will need help from our members in the near future to make sure the needs of fish in the Crooked River are considered.

If you have any questions, or would like to be more involved in our efforts on the Crooked River, please feel free to call:

Ted Brownrigg
Chapter President
Deschutes Chapter #552 of Trout Unlimited
(541) 647 2501