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Wednesday, April 15, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Paltry snowpack leaves Prineville Reservoir low
By Dylan J. Darling
The Bulletin
BEND (AP) — Prineville
Reservoir, largely fed by
snowmelt and rainfall, typi-
cally fills to the brim this
time of year. Not this year,
after a winter with light
snowfall left a paltry snow-
pack above the reservoir.
“It’s looking like, unless
we have a sudden change
in the weather, Prineville
Reservoir is at its peak of the
season,” said Jeremy Giffin,
Deschutes Basin watermas-
ter for the Oregon Water
Resources Department. As of
Thursday the 148,640 acre-
foot reservoir was 83 percent
full. An acre-foot is enough
water to submerge an acre of
ground a foot deep in water.
The agency determines
how much water should be
released to meet water rights
held downstream by farmers,
ranchers and others. Giffin
went to Prineville Reservoir
on Thursday to check just
how much water was flowing
in from the Crooked River,
which feeds the reservoir.
Not much.
Normally this time of
year the Crooked River is
running at about 1,000 cubic
feet per second upstream of
Prineville Reservoir. Giffin
went to check an automated
gauge near Post on Thursday
and found the river to be
flowing at 195 cfs.
“We are running about 20
percent of normal into the
reservoir,” Giffin said, “for
Come In…
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this day.”
The inflow into Prineville
Reservoir is expected to
remain low through summer,
with the Natural Resources
Conservation Service pre-
dicting 16 percent of the nor-
mal inflow there from this
month to September.
Concern about the low
flows and short water sup-
ply for agriculture upstream
of reservoirs prompted
Crook County leaders to
ask the state for an emer-
gency drought declaration
last month, the second year
in a row. Earlier this week,
Gov. Kate Brown declared
the emergency, opening the
way for state assistance for
people affected by the scar-
city of water.
“This year there is going
to be a lot less water than last
year,” Giffin said regarding
ranchers who rely on snow-
melt for their operations near
Post and Paulina, upstream
from Prineville Reservoir.
He said the low stream
flow could cause ranchers
to get in only one cutting
of hay this year. In a good
water year they may get
two or three cuttings. Giffin
said there are about 40,000
acres of irrigated land above
Prineville Reservoir.
The Crooked River is not
the only river, creek or stream
likely to see just a fraction
of normal flows this sum-
mer, according to the recent
federal forecast. The slight
or absent snowpack around
Oregon this year means
spring and summer snowmelt
will not provide the typi-
cal boost of water, said Julie
Koeberle, a snow hydrologist
for the Conservation Service.
“Without that snow we
don’t have anything to sus-
tain streams later in the
season, so that is kind of
that problem,” she said
Wednesday.
While the snowpack
is also poor near Bend, it
may not show in rivers and
streams around Deschutes
County. Koeberle said
springs feed the Deschutes
River and many of the other
streams around the county,
making them less affected by
fluctuations in snowmelt.
The size of the aquifer
feeding the springs buf-
fers the river they supply
from drought, Giffin said.
Consecutive years of drought
can start to take a toll and
this year — a second drought
year — springs could be
flowing less than normal, but
still better than the snowmelt
feeding the Crooked River.
The snowmelt this year
should be much less than
normal, with spotty snow-
pack around the Deschutes/
Crooked River Basin below
5,000 feet. Of the 14 auto-
mated snow survey sites
around the basin, Koeberle
said five already had no
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COTTAGE GROVE (AP)
— It was more entertainment
than the cows usually see.
After a Cottage Grove woman
called to say a stranger was
driving a red pickup truck
through her pastures, a Lane
County sheriff’s deputy con-
fronted the man and ordered
him to the ground.
The man initially followed
directions, then got up and ran.
The deputy used a stun gun
but the man broke contact and
ran to his truck, driving off
across the farm. After a sec-
ond deputy joined the chase,
the man parked and fled on
foot, at one point jumping into
a fork of the Willamette River.
More deputies showed up,
as did Oregon State Police.
Deputies finally confronted
the man in a cow pasture,
where he kicked one of them
in the chest several times
before being subdued as more
than a dozen cattle looked on.
Authorities say 55-year-old
Kevin D. Crook was arrested
for investigation of trespass-
ing, methamphetamine pos-
session, eluding and resisting
arrest.
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snow.
Oregon also saw poor
snowpack numbers last year,
but Koeberle said this year
is worse. Around the state,
three-quarters of the 147
automated snow sites moni-
tored by the Conservation
Service are at record lows.
“This is new territory,”
Koeberle said.
Spring rains can bring
some reprieve from a low-
snow year, but this year that
is not looking likely. The
three-month climate outlook
for the Bend and Redmond
area is for below-normal pre-
cipitation and above-normal
temperatures, said Stephen
Bieda, meteorologist with the
National Weather Service in
Pendleton.
This follows a winter that
brought nearly normal pre-
cipitation, but warm temper-
atures caused much of what
would have been snowfall to
come down as rain except at
the highest elevations.
The average temperature
statewide during the first
three months of the year was
the highest in 121 years of
records. For the first time,
Bend recorded highs of
70 degrees at least once in
each of the three months the
weather service labels win-
ter, December, January and
February.
“That’s the big reason
why our snowpack suffered,”
Bieda said.
Man
accused of
trespassing
arrested after
pasture chase
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