Oregon Story; Water

Funding for production of The Oregon Story was made possible through a generous grant from the United States Department of Agriculture, Rural Development. [cheerful music][water] I've been taught from the time I was a child that the first thing you do in the morning is you take your glass of water, say your prayers, and drink your glass of water. It's a ritual you do every day, and... to keep yourself clean, pure, from any harm,

any bad feeling... you drink your water. Water is just fascinating, and it's beautiful... as it is essential. We have emotional ties to water. You know, we -- we can't be without water. I remember, when I was a boy on the Sprague River just going out to catch 'em for my grandma and my aunt. Thousands of fish in there. We used to get in there and just play with 'em with our hands, just just pick 'em out of the water if you waded out there. Water defines us, here in Oregon. You can't think about Oregon without thinking about water. The lifeblood of our people.

Water that runs through these rivers are the same waters that run through our veins. We rely on water so totally, and yet we seem to have so little handle on, in our Oregon situation, where it comes from, who controls it... For something THAT fundamental to be so little understood, I think is a problem. [new voice]Oregon's reputation is one of rain and wetness but that's a little misleading. [first voice]Yeah, it's wet. That isn't to say, though, that we're so rich in water that we don't have problems, because that wetness is applied unevenly in time and in space. Most of our water comes into the state in the winter and goes off in spring. [first voice]And most of eastern Oregon is simply dry year-round, with an average of 15 inches or less annual precipitation.

[2nd voice]Irrigation is lifeblood of this whole area. Once you cross the Cascade Mountains and head east, we're desert. And without irrigation you know, none of this would be as productive as it is. [alt.voice]In the summer of 2001, hundreds of farms in Klamath County lost their irrigation. Crops failed, families suffered, and a new kind of Oregon crisis emerged: a water crisis. Here, in the federally-controlled Klamath project to conserve water for two species of endangered fish, officials denied irrigation water to about 200,000 acres of farmland. In the weeks that followed, Oregonians began to hear a new term. Water had been over-allocated and it turns out: not only in the Klamath Basin. Throughout Oregon, government has promised far more of our water than actually exists.

About 80 percent of the state's usable freshwater goes to agriculture. The rest is industry, hydro power, city water supplies, and other uses. Farmers have long taken for granted that when water runs short in late summer thousands will have their irrigation turned off. Yet even as all these established interests vie for the limited water, additional claims to the same water are still piling up -- For fish, for recreation, to maintain water quality, and for a growing population. About 20 species of fish in Oregon waters are threatened or endangered, often from the poor quality or the simple lack of water. [alt.voice]I think the public would be surprised to learn that it's perfectly OK, if you have the right permits, to pump a stream dry. I mean, that just doesn't seem right to a lot of people -- but in point of fact it happens all the time. Drawing from more than 25,000 wells, Oregonians used huge

quantities of subsurface groundwater; in some areas, faster the nature replenishes it. [alt. voice]What's happening particularly in those aquifers -- they're basalt aquifers normally -- and they've only got so much water stored in them, and as you tap them they -- they run out. [alt.voice]Drinking water quality concerns everyone, from Portlanders who may one day be drinking the Willamette River, to rural well owners. Well, Bob Young here lives in this corner house and -- and he saw the first effects of it, it's a smell that's a bad smell and it turns yellow... and then the next house over was the first one to be contaminated with E. coli. [alt.voice]Oregon's mountains are its most important reservoir of stored water. Each summer and spring, the melting snows become the water that sustains us through the dry months. So predictions of global climate change and diminished snow packs do not bode well. And as competition increases for existing sources of fresh, clean water and

climatologists forecast drier years ahead for the Pacific Northwest, the population of water users continues to surge. [alt.voice]In the Willamette River Basin, I think we're faced with a population doubling in 50 years. Where are the 4 million of us that will be here in 2050 going to get our water? [alt.voice]In my opinion, the next great battle that we have will be about water. All in all, the West is a dry place; at least, much more so than the eastern part of the country the settlers came from. Back in the mid 1800s, the government began to offer free land to any white man or woman who could live on it productively for five years. Free land AND free water. Water was one of the first things that all people went looking for before they settled on a homestead, and now you see these little islands of trees with the ramshackle little homes

surrounded by wheat fields... and those were springs and probably still are -- Productive springs where people settled in and said, "This is the place and I'm going to make a living here." [woman]A lot of the disputes were really over water. We knew where the water sources were and where the streams were, because those were our road maps to go either to fishing or to go and visit other tribes. When the settlers moved in, fences were put out. people were told to get away. Our people couldn't go to the spring and camp anymore because it was taken over by ranchers. [male voice]And all the while the sheep and cattle ranchers, and farmers as well, often fought amongst themselves over water. [alt.male]Harlan Cantrell, who had the Cantrell ranch down here, and Louis Buckley.. They got into it one time over water and it was a real serious thing because they got into a conflict over the water one day and Harlan

Cantrell -- I can't remember which one -- but one's just took the shovel and just hit him in the mouth, knocked all of his teeth out. And I mean they -- they were dead serious about water. [alt.voice]Most first time homesteaders eventually found the going too tough, often because of the scarcity of water, and moved on. But those who would persevere were amply rewarded. [male]The deal was you come here, you develop resources, you find a way to farm the land, we'll reward you with free water and the certainty of having that water for as long as you need it. Well, water rights are about the most important thing you can have. In Texas, it might be the oil underneath your ground, but in a farming area... it's water. By law, Oregon's water belongs to all the Oregonians. What that means, though, is not clear, since actually using it requires a

water right. And most of those were doled out LONG ago. They call this "the vault" but it's just a locked room at the Oregon Water Resources Department in Salem. The contents, though, are like gold. [alt.male]The Oregon legislature adopted the Oregon water laws on February 24th 1909. That's our birthday, so to speak. [alt.male]In this room is every state water right ever issued, many going back into the 1800s. This map that we're looking at was surveyed by a Mr. Farmer in July of 1911. [alt.male]Oregon water law is based on a system of prior appropriation: a sort of "first come, first served," and once you have a water right, you are

entitled to all of YOUR water before anyone else whose right was granted later. [new male]You can come and you can get 160 acres right next door to me and maybe you can even use my ditch; but if there's only enough water for 160 acres at the end of the irrigation season: I get it and you don't. [alt.male]So a farm with an old water right is by FAR a lot more valuable than a farm with a new water right. You know, because I'm going to get water to my farm when other people aren't going to be getting water to their farm, because my water right's older, so therefore: I'll have more crop production, I'll have, you know, a more efficient, more productive farm, and so I'll end up with with more value off that land. [alt.male]One reason water rights have become so precious is that they are permanent and are attached to the property, even when it's sold. [alt.male]My 80 irrigated acres will sell for a half a million dollars.

You take the irrigation off of it and you can't sell it for $100,000. That's how much the water is worth to the property. [alt.male]The main legal condition for water usage is to practice beneficial use without waste, a concept that has never been clearly defined. In 1909, people viewed rivers as water going to waste; the natural function of a stream, the fish in a stream, were irrelevant. A flaw was that the environmental needs were not considered. It wasn't really ever contemplated. The effects that water withdrawal could have on stream systems. Fish and wildlife, salmon. So, it was never truly accounted for in the 1909 water law. [alt.male]So from that era of values, often different from today's, most of the usable freshwater in Oregon was essentially locked up for agricultural use.

[woman]It was a good doctrine at the time that was passed and it really hasn't changed over a hundred years, and it certainly hasn't changed to meet the changing needs of society today. We've given away more water than we have in our rivers. And the place where the water's going to come from is from the folks that have the claims on the water. That's where it's going to come from. You can't -- you can't create new water. [male]But an irrigator's right to use water is vital to his survival... not to mention his by law, and for you to come along one hundred fifty years later and say, "That permission is revoked. I'm taken my water back." That's stealing. How can that water that's been locked up under existing permits and rights, and legally locked up be shared? Because there's not a lot of new water to go around. [sound of water flowing]

There are a lot more people here who are using water in different ways and we're just bumping up against the supply limits in a state that to most of us heretofore hasn't had a water worry in the world. But I think it's becoming common knowledge that hey there's- there's something we need to pay attention to here. [narrator] There's another feature of Oregon's water law that warrants attention, too. [man] The state does not charge a penny for a drop of water. You pay for the system and the cleaning for your water. You pay somebody to pipe it to your house, but the state doesn't collect a single dime. [sound] [narrator] While water users generally pay for the water delivery, they do not pay for the use of the resource itself. [man] There are costs to treating water as a free good, and those costs include perhaps not very careful use. You- you treat stuff different when you pay for it rather than when it's free. No one would allow state timber to be cut without accountability [inaudible]. [sound of water spraying on plants, transitioning to sound of boots crunching on ground] [man] This is an area that would have been irrigated if Tumalo Reservoir had

succeeded. [sound of sprinklers] [narrator] The story of modern day Central Oregon has been one of trying to make the desert green. But, probably, the most dramatic setback to that challenge took place here in Tumalo, not far from Bend. [sound of birds chirping] [man] We are looking at what was going to be Tumalo Reservoir -- in 19--- 14. The dream was, the belief of the engineers was, that this would all be a large -- although somewhat shallow -- reservoir that would store Tumalo Creek water into the months of late June through August -- and then it would be diverted little by little during the summer and irrigate the fields. I think this was a significant feat at the time it was built and it's about 75 feet high and it was built by the latest technology of the time. [narrator] The reservoir took in its first water in late 1914 and within a few months was

nearly half filled. But the engineers had not understood the fissured volcanic ground underneath. [man] I think this is the place where the major failure in the reservoir occurred in 1915. The hole simply opened up one April morning and was discovered actually by some schoolchildren walking along the road up there. And -- the water just swirled and swirled down in and they tried what were then I guess farm remedies -- they put hay in it and they put -- they tried to run more water in it, and more dirt in it, and more hay in it, and probably tamp it with sheet, walking around on it, and they blew boxes of dynamite up in it to try to collapse it on itself, but nothing stopped it. [narrator] More holes opened up in the weeks that followed, and Tumalo Reservoir would never hold water again. [man] And the dam never failed. The dam is as good today probably as it was then. The water got up to about 40 feet. [sound of boots walking on dirt] This was the end of a --

big dream. But, the reservoir was never officially declared dead. People always thought, "Oh, sometime, maybe we'll figure out how to make it hold water." But in the meantime, life went on, and the hole is still there. [music plays] [music continues playing, sound of birds chirping] [Narrator] Even disasters, like Tumalo Reservoir, could not undermine the quest to water Oregon's arid lands. [music starts to play] Still those plans called for far more resources than any local community could muster. In Oregon and the rest of the West, the kingpins of water development have always been the Army Corps of Engineers and the US Bureau of Reclamation with most irrigation projects falling to reclamation. The bureau's most extensive and expensive water venture in Oregon has been this: the Klamath Project, straddling the Oregon California border. [music ends, birds chirp] [man] Reclamation came into the basin in 1905, we began developing the basin, and --

homesteaded lands, developed irrigation systems, reservoirs, water supplies -- you know, basically enticing people out of the East into the West to develop the West, so that we become more of a contiguous United States. [narrator] It was a time when wetlands were called swamps and land that wasn't used for agriculture was wasted space -- Land, that in the language of the time, [music starts playing] ought to be reclaimed. To that end, the Klamath Project drained the vast marsh areas around Upper Klamath Lake. On the Oregon portion of the lower Klamath, the Bureau reclaimed both the marshes and the lake itself and drained all but a small portion of Tooley lake. Clear Lake, on the other hand, was expanded, becoming a giant, evaporating pond to get rid of water that might otherwise flow into the newly created farmland. [sound of water rushing] The Bureau of Reclamation claimed all water rights that had not already been assigned. One reason it has so much authority over this project today.

[man] We can lower rivers, we can lower lakes, we can raise lakes, we can build dams, we can -- do all this and we have the water. [narrator] The project was a great success and farming has thrived there. [cow mooing] In time, though, the waters of the Klamath Basin, like waters elsewhere, became over- allocated. [sound of water rushing] Over-committed to farmers, tribes, and hydro power needs. Conservationists began to advocate for fish. [underwater sounds] [man] Coupling that, with the Endangered Species Act, which had listed species in the basin. [birds chirping] [narrator] And then came the drought years. [man] I think the Klamath represents the train wreck that results when you have opposing forces unyielding on a track that puts them at odds. And I think that situation -- that potential -- exists in lots of places. [sound of car passing] I think we can get to a Klamath in the Willamette quicker than anybody would like to see. [music begins playing]

[narrator] And, in fact, while the national media were covering events in Klamath, another crisis did unfold -- hundreds of miles to the north. [man] Detroit Lake, 50 miles east of Salem, State Highway 22 -- Anybody that travels from Salem to Bend has to go by it. [narrator] The Corps of Engineers built Detroit Dam on the Santiam River as part of a multi-dam winter flood control scheme for the Willamette basin. [sound of water flowing] Nowadays, those 13 dams also generate electricity, provide stream flow in dry months for fish and for water quality, and offer recreation for hundreds of thousands of visitors. [man] From about the middle of July through the middle of August is absolutely packed with people, in a normal year. All of the marinas are fully booked every year. I have long waiting lists for -- space. Our campgrounds normally are full 7 days a week. It gets

real busy around here. [water splashing] [narrator] But Detroit Lake was not busy in the summer of 2001. [man] It didn't rain and we didn't get much snow. [man] It was a big wake up call, I think, in terms of the management system behind those dams in the Willamette. [birds chirping] [narrator] A dry year and some controversial management decisions left the reservoir half empty. [man] This is really low. We usually don't see any stumps, they're all covered with water, and -- it's pretty hard to get a boat in now. It's usually all the way up to the trees, or all the way up to the green. [noise] [narrator] And the visitor-dependent local economy took a nosedive. [man] This lake belongs to every citizen in Oregon. Please visit us, support us, and help us. It's your lake too. [man] Surprise, Detroit Lake is not a lake. It's a reservoir. Call it a lake, looks like a lake, and it's a very understandably powerful attractant.

The canyon communities rely on Detroit. But guess what. It's not their lake. It's not their water. And what happened in 2001 is that a certain amount of water is needed to help migrating Smoltz downstream, to keep water temperatures down and to do some environmentally good things below the reservoir. So, they essentially drained it. They, being the Corps of Engineers. If you take a look at the 13 flood control dams in the Willamette- how they're tapped, when they're tapped, and what that means to local economies, downstream economies, and downstream environments. It's something that we've never really had to figure out much before. For the insiders took care of it for us. [man] There's still a little water down there. Enough, if we can get into it. We can enjoy it. [narrator] The climates and Willamette river basins have been highly modified to serve people's needs. Even the daily level of the Willamette as it flows through Portland is ordered from an Army Corps

office downtown. [rushing water noise] Still, no river in Oregon is more dammed, diverted, and just plain manipulated than the Deschutes. The Deschutes River practically defines the central part of the state. The native crowd in the lower river supports some of the best fly fishing in the country. [rushing water noise] It's challenging whitewater [shouting sounds] linked by long stretches of great scenery make floating the river a warm-weather Oregon institution. But in reality, the main function of the Deschutes these days is to support agriculture. [mechanical noise] [man] It just hits me every time. It's the most beautiful irrigation ditch in the world. [narrator] [trickling water sounds] Within just miles of its spring-fed headwaters, the Deschutes is held back in the giant irrigation reservoirs of ?Wikia? and ?Crane? Prairie. [man] This is probably the most beautiful reservoir in Oregon too. You know it's- [clears throat] I can excuse impounding the Deschutes River

for this place. [rushing water sounds] [narrator] In winter, the dams hold back almost all the water that flows in, releasing just small streams. [trickling water sounds] But even so, this terrain is groundwater-rich. Of the thousands of springs replenish the Deschutes. So much so, that by the time it approaches ?Venom? Falls, it is raging again. Though not for long. [rushing water sounds] At ?Bend?, much of the river, sometimes nearly all of it, is diverted for irrigation. That water is sprinkled and flooded over some 80,000 acres of farmland. And what little remains of the Deschutes River flows on. To other rivers, the ?Motolius? and the Crooked are dammed with the Deschutes to form Lake Billy Chinook. Then, after passing through two more dams for power generating, the Deschutes River rolls unfettered towards the Columbia and eventually out to sea. [rushing water sounds] [music chimes]

But all this has taken its toll on the river. Fish passage is blocked at several points by dams. Much of the middle Deschutes between Bend and Billy Chinook runs so low and warm some years that few fish can even live in it. [rushing water sounds] And for all the oceans of water this mighty river provides to the people of the basin, it's still not enough. So as the central Oregon population continues to boom, the limited water poses a real challenge. [wind sounds] [man] You have an irrigated agricultural economy being placed now side by side with one of the fastest growing areas of the state. There is a differential developing between the value of the water. Is it for agriculture or is it for recreation or tourism. [whacking sound] [woman] The Deschutes basin and there is burgeoning growth. I think the Bend ?reminary? is supposed to grow by 59 percent by the year

2010. And the question is, "Where are we going to get water?" [man] It turns out you don't have to have an answer to that before you develop. It's nothing with part of the land use planning laws or maybe some local ordinances that help people think that way. But I'd say that's the exception rather than the rule. [birds chirp] [narrator] State land use laws require cities to have urban growth plans to clearly identify which land will support future growth. Not so for water. There is no Oregon water plan. [man] And I think it would be a good thing to have. It's just, you know, you don't write any show these days, at least successfully, I don't think, without some sense of what you've got, where you are, where you're going and we don't have enough water in Oregon. [mechanical noises] As surface water options have dwindled, Oregonians have so far turned to a common fallback source for new water. [woman] The answer has been until recently, ground water.

[narrator] Since the advent of electric well pumps, ground water extraction has accelerated sharply, sometimes too sharply. [man] There are monitoring wells kept by the Water Resources Department that have shown over a 20-year period, a 400-foot drop in water levels in some areas. [narrator] In many areas around the state, the department has restricted groundwater use and well-drilling to protect the remaining water resources. [man] But there aren't monitoring wells everywhere. And you know, it's conceivable that there are groundwaters dropping at rates in areas that we just don't know about yet. [narrator] In the Deschutes water shed, some people fear that too much groundwater use will also directly affect local stream flows, often too low already. Hydrologists say the sheer volume of groundwater here should support some increased use without a big impact. But there's no denying the connection

as can be seen in places like this. The Crooked River Gorge. [man] The connection between ground water and surface water ceases to become an abstraction, you can see it. There's water just pouring out of the canyon wall. So that kind of is at the center of the water management issue in the basin. [woman] It is just not the case that you can just over-allocate a surface water source and say, "OK well, we'll go to ground water." It's all the same system. [music chimes] [rushing water sounds] [man] It pays us all to keep in mind that water falling on the land, water being moved around on the land eventually becomes ground water and vice versa. And from time to time, you have to expect some intersections with water systems that are just nightmarish and particularly for small communities. [narrator] A nightmare of sorts did occur in Bonanza, population 415, just down the road from Klamath Falls.

[man] It's an illustration of the need not to take your water source for granted and that the interactions between surface and ground water can be surprising. [mechanical sounds] [narrator] Steve and Alice ?Casebeer? farm about 500 acres that his family settled in the 1920s. [man] It happened to be the dust bowl days. And this ranch had the best water right around and with Bonanza having all the the springs and things. [narrator] Bonanza is named for its bounty of natural springs. More than fifteen hundred of them bubbling forth cold, pure water. This aquifer is our sole source drinking water supply. All of our residents the hundred and forty homes that we have all have individual wells that service them. And so it's not a municipal system, it's not a chlorinated system it's beautiful spring water. Bonanza has beautiful spring water, and undrinkable irrigation water. This is the Lost River. Before they started backing it up for

irrigation and things this was a fairly small river. Now it's backed up for for irrigation purposes, and it creates a reservoir here. Ordinarily the springs flow into the river and the positive flow from the springs keeps the river water out. But in especially dry summers drought conditions decrease the volume of water underground and those same conditions lead people to pump more water from the ground for irrigation and residential use. So when the springs drop in both level and pressure the direction of flow reverses the river water begins to pour underground. Down into the groundwater. Sixty five million gallons worth from August 8th until September 12th or 15th. When it quit. And this house on the corner here, there was little kids out playing and I had to go find the parents and - and say hey you know that water could be contaminated. And then here a

week later they were the first residents to be E. coli positive. Several times in recent summers the people of Bonanza have had to drink bottled water until the springs flush the river water back out. Right now this looks clear but 65 million gallons went down, mixed up. We don't know how many hundreds of millions has to come out before it's pure again. So it's going to take some weeks or maybe months. While the Bonanza story is unique. Water quality problems occur throughout the state. In fact the water used by one in every five Oregonians fails to meet the EPA standards for drinking water. Steve thinks the solution in his town is obvious. Do whatever it takes to keep these springs flowing. Whether that's, maybe at times, cutting back on some irrigation wells or lowering the river letting the springs run free is a thing that makes the most sense. But local farmers will still need to store water, lots of it, in this reservoir.

The town is growing fast and townspeople and farmers continue to draw down the groundwater in dry weather. So unless a lot of things can change in Bonanza this town may be headed for a piped chlorinated drinking water system. Just like many other towns that were never blessed with a resource like this. Even though we're irrigators, we're environmentalists, and we'd like to see water in the rivers too. Around the state, many people are working to head off water problems. Today's Tumalo Irrigation District for example is a leader in water use efficiency and conservation. We feel that we have to be proactive. We don't want a Klamath Falls situation up here and it's coming if we don't do these things. I feel very strongly that Klamath falls will spread like a cancer if we don't take action and do these

things. Irrigation water here is carefully monitored and measured at different points Four-point-one eight cubic feet per second. Few other districts track their water usage this well. I don't want to stand here and look at that rock over there, and say well that's about right. I want to know what's going by. But the real innovation in Tumalo is the effort to enclose the ditches, to put the water that's now in open canals into pipes. In most irrigation systems, an enormous amount of water is lost through seepage and evaporation while in transit to the fields. This is especially true of unlined ditches and canals such as this one, in Bend. Right now there is no water in the canal obviously but the important thing about this canal and many of the canals in this area, is that it's basically carved out of very young, highly fractured lava. And if you look down at the ground here, you'll see it's very uneven. It's-it's full of cracks and fissures,

and a large proportion of the water that's diverted out of the river and into this canal is lost through leakage. Roughly half of the water from the Deschutes, at Bend, leaks. And it is lost before it ever makes it to the fields. Consequently, farmers divert lots of extra water to compensate for the inevitable loss. Irrigators in Tumalo would rather leave that water in stream, for the fish. Years ago we used to dry this "crick" up below this point. Since our piping program, we're trying to keep a minimum of five cubic feet per second going by here. This canal is channeled into a couple of underground pipes permitting no more evaporation or leakage from this point on, and the water saved can stay in Tumalo Creek. But getting landowners to approve a full conversion is taking time partly because of the

initial cost. And also, because some folks like the aesthetics of the open canals and resist efforts to pipe irrigation water, preferring to see it flowing through the countryside, even in a ditch. Still, the Little Tumalo Irrigation District is making a big statement about water conservation. The demand for water is going to get greater and greater. With only one place that water can come from - and that's more efficient irrigation systems. The people we have working on water in Oregon I think are really good. But, in terms of systems, it's nobody's job to make sure Oregon has enough water in a hundred years. It's just nobody's job. Oregon is just beginning to confront water issues that have plagued many other states and countries for a long time. And I think there are lots of lessons to be learned elsewhere. It's taking the trouble to learn them and to study them. We, in some ways, have not been required to do much homework in Oregon.

But many farmers have done their homework and do learn from the experiences of farmers elsewhere, and work full time with new technologies to use water more efficiently. [Hansell] Yeah, it was either that or quit farming. So, those are the choices. Tyler Hansell farms near Umatilla, an area that simply would not be farmable without irrigation. This area was also one of the - the first in the state to seriously over-pump ground water. Our water table, starting about '72 to '73, was dropping drastically. We're talking 8 to 10 feet a year drops. And if that continued, the natural recharge or the aquifer recharge naturally would not sustain what we were taking out. Ok, 1-2-3. The state began to restrict groundwater use here, So Tyler and his neighbors created an innovative solution - to recharge the depleted aquifer by channeling in river water during the high water winter months.

So this water flows in an open canal a mile and a half, and then there's a holding pond and the water literally just percolates down into our wells. Everybody said it wasn't going to work. It worked. It shocked everybody. Our well tables have increased. We're back to the '62 pumping levels it's been very, very successful. Increased water storage capacity above and below ground will be critical in Oregon's coming years. And, farmers here have a head start on how to do it. Like most other farmers in this area, Tyler has also converted to low pressure sprinklers in his fields. Which takes a lot less water and a lot less energy. As we put the drop tubes down closer to the ground, you get less evaporation. And you get better coverage on your crops. And his drip-irrigated watermelon crop is a textbook example of making every drop count.

The production is almost double what it was before and the water conservation is probably two-thirds savings, right now. All you're watering are this little strip. You aren't watering all the drive area and everything else, you're just watering right here. These farmers, like other Oregonians, pay nothing for the actual water they use. But much of their irrigation water is pumped up from the Columbia River, and they pay dearly to get it to their crops. The high cost of raising water from the Columbia is one reason more people don't use it. It also explains why this region leads the state in water efficient agriculture. And by the time we'd push it to this furthest circle at elevation 1100. we've pushed it about 32 miles uphill. And consequently, uh, this water costs us about 85 to 90 dollars an acre foot because we're pushing it so far, and the lift is so great. Kent Madison monitors the watering of his nearly 15,000 acres

electronically, with computers. This computer is-is tracking and monitoring all the circles on the farm that we have the radio link system set up to. So when you look at a dark colored circle, like that one right there, it's indicating that that circle's on with water on. This particular circle here in front of us has a computer controlled panel. And we can program that circle to do different things; to reverse itself backwards automatically, to slow itself down at certain spots, to speed itself up a certain spots. Many of his fields, the ones he flooded irrigates, have been precision levelled with laser equipped scrapers. The advantage of that is, is when we go to irrigate this field since we don't have any high spots, we can use less water. Also, these fields are lasered in succession to one another - this one here is of a higher elevation than that field there, which is higher elevation than the next field down. So, any tail water that comes off of this field, that's the water that goes beyond what the field needs and comes back into this ditch, is used on the next field down. So, we can continue to-to re circulate that water

from field to field to field, and the objective is to never let it leave the end of the farm. Once a week, a technician tests key sites with a device called a neutron probe. This procedure uses low level radiation to measure soil moisture, allowing water to be applied with great precision. You know, if she can save us an inch of water on every acre we own by having this more accurate data, more than pays for her wages. While Kent holds a variety of old and new water rights, he also uses waste water from a nearby potato processing plant on his crops. I think today's farmer has to be a resource manager. We're not ma and pa pitchfork, like the old picture shows. As water use becomes more limited in the Northwest, the growers of Umatilla, Echo, and Hermiston may have some valuable knowledge to share. I think they're the early adopters of technologies and management systems that

recognize water for what it is - a very precious commodity. And, they're taking the care now investing in the waterworks, and the metal works. I think it takes to understand what the new management systems will be all about. And that is a an experience, a knowledge base that will be needed not only by farmers, but will be needed by all of us. And they're laid right here right underneath the black tarp. They're interested, they're informed. And I think that they are sort of the reconnaissance team into the future, in terms of water. The Applegate Valley in southern Oregon's Jackson County is named for the Applegate river. And recently, the river's main tributary - the Little Applegate - has attracted national attention. More than 100 years ago farmers put the first dam across the Little Applegate to divert water into this ditch called of all things, Farmer's Ditch.

This water goes into the ditch and it feeds the 32 landowners of the Farmer's Ditch Association, to help them irrigate their properties. The rest of the water flows into the main stem Applegate River, eventually. Which then flows into the Rogue, which goes to the Pacific Ocean. Just upstream, a second dam was built to supply the Buchan-Jones Ditch, and 12 more farms. The ditches flow through each property, and on their allotted days, the owners divert water onto their fields and pasture land. It's simple gravity fed flood irrigation. See where I cut it loose up there. It's in four sets and that's irrigating that side of that little hill right in there, that water. And then what I'll do is go down there and I'll clean a little of the ditch out, and I cut it in about three more sets and it goes on the other side, and then that'll run for another four or five hours.

And then, you come up and change that again. Nothing's high tech. You never get fat doing this beacuse you can't wave a magic wand, or turn a valve on. I will come up at least three and four times just to keep this water moving. And you can do this year in, year out, and not harm the land. I've been doing it for years. You don't harm nothin'. Well, actually this system does harm something, the native fish. In a hot year, such as 2001, this could be diverting up to 90 to 95 percent of the stream flow. There's two miles from the mouth of the river to our dam. It is bone dry, in a dry year. OK. That ruins the habitat. The little bugs and worms and all the stuff that the fishes eat. they all die because there's no water.

By diverting so much of the water and by blocking access to up river, the dams have had a devastating impact on steelhead, salmon and cutthroat trout in the river. And so, The dams block access to between 40 and 80 miles of tributaries above those dams, that provide what we think are viable habitat for steelhead. And certainly, also for Coho and Chinook salmon, which also do use this watershed. The landowners have always known about the problem. Many times I went down - there was steelhead and a lot of times cutthroat, beautiful cutthroat in there. And they were stopped at the dam. It made me sick, because I wanted to see those fish get a chance. And they expected that someday the situation would attract a legal challenge, as was already happening to other fish-blocking dams in the area.

There's problems with the people who love fish. They point fingers. It's your fault, farmer. You're taking the water out of the river. And, they're suing them, and lawyers, and the whole shebang. Pretty soon they'll be down to dams our size. So, what can we do? One alternative would be to take out the dams and go to a system of pumps and sprinklers, replacing the inefficient flood irrigation. It's a gross waste of water. A much better way to do it, is to sprinkle irrigate. Because you can then put the exact amount of water, exactly where you want it, at exactly the right time. Sprinkler irrigationprobably uses half the water to flood irrigation uses, and produces twice the crop. The snag of course would be money - money to build the system and for electricity to run it. The electric bill for the pump.

will kill you. An even better solution would be to stop irrigating from this river altogether, and instead draw from the main stem Applegate - a river with a constant, adequate flow. But, that extra distance would boost costs even higher. If it's for the public good why should the individual have to pay for it. Why shouldn't the public pay for it? The public pays for all kinds of things for the public good. The same thing with water. You just have to figure out what you want and who's going to pay for it. It is not fair to come up with some law that lays it on a farmer to pay for the benefits for the fisherman. If the fisherman wants the benefits, the fishermen got to pay the benefits. What's happening here explains why this valley has attracted the attention of angling and conservation groups around the country.

I said "If Applegate River Watershed Council can get the money, why don't we go whole hog? Change the whole thing to sprinkler irrigation." The Watershed Council brought together many interested parties and lo and behold, the fishermen did pay to get the benefits. The complete project budget is a million and a half dollars. We're getting all this money through grants from the federal government, from various state agencies, from non-profit organizations and from private industry. In the coming months, the dams for Farmers Ditch and Buckin Jones Ditch will be removed. The landowners will transfer their water rights to become in-stream water rights, which means that from now on all that water will, by law, stay in the Little Applegate river. And we've got in-stream water rights flowing down that river forever.

By next summer, these ditches will be dry and the affected properties will instead get their water through new sprinkler systems from here - the Big Applegate River. Land owners will even get a little financial help with the higher electric bills. Funders range from U.S. Fish and Wildlife, to the Orvis fishing equipment company, to hundreds of individuals. Everybody who is participating in the project is gaining. And, that's the important thing. And, it's a market driven solution. People who want healthy streams help pay the necessary costs. I don't see why it can't be done all over the United States. And, it can be. But, it's got to be done first by the fisherman, water resources regulator and a farmer, you sit down and you say "What do you want to accomplish? How much is it going to cost us to accomplish it?

Who's going to get what out of it and who's going to put what into it?" You know, I don't think we're going to regulate our way to more water. I don't think we're going to regulate our way in most ways to more fish and things like that - what's it worth to you? Show me the money. I think that's where the action will be in the next 10 -20 years. We improved the fisheries in the Rogue River. because we took the two dams out in the Little Applegate River. And the fishes swim all the way up the Little Applegate River, lay their eggs, have the babies. The water stays there and they flow and they come all the way back to the Rogue River, and we can catch them with a fishing pole. And as I get into my 90's, it will be nice - I can go out and turn a valve on. I'll live longer, and I'll have water going. I think I'm gonna enjoy it. Yeah. How water jumps out of the ground right here. So, it's pure water when it jumps out of the ground. And within a 50 to 60 mile

stretch, it's polluted. I think the DEQ called it a dead and dying river down here. And just that far... (chanting) Any serious discussion of water and the future of water in Oregon, must include the tribal perspective. I hear people in Harney County say their family have been here since for five, six generations in Harney County and I say "Well, my people have been here for more than 10,000 years." Most significantly though, Oregon's Indian tribes hold federal treaty rights, often including rights to water that predate most state water rights in force today. How the tribes may ultimately use these powerful rights is uncertain. But when the Warm Springs, Klamath and others do put their water rights into play, significant impacts are sure to follow. To date, the tribes have tended to use their water rights only

as general leverage. To encourage the different parties in water disputes to come together and talk. There's a lot of people that don't want to recognize the tribe's right because it's a different livelihood than the one that they're accustomed to, you know. Those can be the opposite of each other, or they can also work together. And it's up to us to see how we wanna try to come together, and the tribe's open to making it come together. That's our directive from the council. (noise) I think it should be required of any thinking Oregonian to know where their water comes from. Water problems loom large in Oregon's future. We're going to double our population in Oregon in the next 50 years. That's a lot more people who will require water not only for their homes, but for their businesses.

And, there will be a continued need for agricultural water. And while agriculture is the main user and rights holder of Oregon's water, urban communities are also the source of many of the problems. It's easy to overlook our own impacts on the environment by pointing fingers at others. If you have a sense that water is not being well managed or well-taken care of in rural parts of the state, do us all a favor and think about "How have you come to have water?" What dams operate now to provide you with water? And as we approach the centennial of the 1909 Oregon water law, we still lack a comprehensive plan for the coming years. It's a turning point, I think, for Oregon. If we don't turn, we go over the cliff.

I think everybody wants to take care of water. I think everybody wants to be sure that there's enough to go around not only now, but in the future. Farmers like fishing as much as some folks in Portland lawfirms like fishing. Nobody wants to see salmon go extinct. If water is the lifeblood of our economies, our communities, and our own physical selves, perhaps Oregonians may want to pay a little more attention to this precious resource. Well if they want to drink it, swim in it, recreate by it or have a continued economic future, it's well worth their time in considering. I think it's a challenge to people in cities to get beyond the faucet. You know, you turn it on, there's water - it's taken for granted until it's not there. And in some cases, it can be not there pretty quick. (music)

(music) Funding for production of the Oregon Story was made possible through a generous grant from the United States Department of Agriculture, Rural Development.