2A ❚ WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2019 ❚ APPEAL TRIBUNE
Ornaments
Continued from Page 1A
Address: P.O. Box 13009, Salem, OR 97309
Phone: 503-399-6773
lamette National Forestwas chosen to
provide the Capitol Christmas Tree in
2018, ornaments were hidden along the
forest trails for people to find.
The hunt's purpose was to encourage
people to get outdoors and explore the
forest. The visitors association decided
to bring it back for a second year.
Those who find an ornament are en-
couraged to use the hashtags
"#FindYourOrnament," "#FindYourTrail
" and "#IwonderWV" on social media.
For
more
information,
visit
oregonwinecountry.org/ornament.
Abby Luschei is the arts and enter-
tainment reporter for the Statesman
Journal and can be reached at alus-
chei@statesmanjournal.com or 503-
399-6747.
Interested in telling at one of the up-
coming Salem Storytellers Project
events?
Submit
your
story:
www.storytellersproject.com/tell.
Fax: 503-399-6706
Email: sanews@salem.gannett.com
Web site: www.SilvertonAppeal.com
Staff
News Director
Don Currie
503-399-6655
dcurrie@statesmanjournal.com
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People can search for some 200 glass
ornaments hidden along
non-wilderness trails in the Willamette
National Forest for the Willamette
Valley Visitors Association's second
Annual Ornament Hunt. WILLAMETTE
VALLEY VISITORS ASSOCIATION
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Victor Point area farmers and landowners including Jesse Rue, left, Joel Rue, Bruce Jaquet and Lucas Rue, are fighting to keep a proposed dam and reservoir from
being built along Drift Creek. SHELDON TRAVER/SPECIAL TO THE APPEAL TRIBUNE
Drift Creek
Continued from Page 1A
After 14 years of battling in venues
from state agencies to courts and mil-
lions of dollars in public and private
money spent on both sides, the pro-
posed dam has finally been defeated by
a decision from the Oregon Water Re-
sources Commission.
“Some people say that we won this
one, and I personally don’t think that
we’re winners,” Rue said.
The major sticking point with the
plan was whether the proposal of the
East Valley Water District – a quasi-leg-
islative body made up of farmers in a
wide swath around Mt. Angel – com-
plied with Oregon rules that such a pro-
ject not be detrimental to fish species,
specifically cutthroat trout.
East Valley Water District board chair
Dave Bielenberg said over the past dec-
ade the district followed every step it
was directed to by the Oregon Water Re-
sources Department to obtain the water
rights and build the dam.
Until the commission’s ruling, every
major opinion and decision seemed to
go in favor of East Valley, and building
the dam seemed imminent.
“We’ve done everything that the law
requires of us and the department
asked,” said Bielenberg, who owns 1,200
acres of land around Mt. Angel where he
grows grass seed, vegetables and spe-
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cialty seed crops.
The East Valley Water District has 60
days from the Water Resources Com-
mission’s decision to appeal it to the
Oregon Court of Appeals, according to
Water Resources Department spokes-
person Racquel Rancier.
"The board has not met since the rul-
ing, so we don’t know what we’re going
to do,” Bielenberg said.
Eyeing Drift Creek for decades
Water rights are a commodity in Ore-
gon.
With them, the holders have the abil-
ity to transform wide swaths of land into
highly-productive farms, growing ev-
erything from nursery plants like arbor
vitae, commodity crops like corn and
blueberries, and newly sought-after
items like hazelnuts and hemp.
There are tens of thousands of acres
of prime Willamette Valley farmland
around Mt. Angel and many farmers in
the area own water rights, but those
rights are subject to curtailment in
times of low water.
Multiple times – including once in
the 1950s and in 1993 – farmers in the
area considered building a dam along
Drift Creek south of Silverton for a res-
ervoir where they could store and reg-
ulate the water for their farms in times
of low water.
But it wasn’t until 2000 that a group
of farmers organized themselves into
the East Valley Water District.
The geographic boundary of the dis-
trict covers areas of Marion and Clacka-
mas counties from north of Silverton to
south of Woodburn and Molalla, bor-
dered by the Pudding River and the Cas-
cade Mountain foothills.
There are 35,000 acres of tillable land
within the boundaries of the district and
about half are already being irrigated
with existing water rights.
Building new dams in Oregon is diffi-
cult, and there are many considerations
along the way.
The district considered more than 75
different sites before deciding on Victor
Point due to water availability, geology
of the area and cost.
But they kept coming back to Drift
Creek, which originates near Silver Falls
State Park and meanders 11 miles
through rolling hills into the Pudding
River, and building a dam just north of
Victor Point seemed their best option.
In 2013, the East Valley Water District
formally applied to the Oregon Water
Resources Department for the right to
store water at Drift Creek. The depart-
ment issued a proposed final order in
2014, recommending approving the
dam, but neighbors whose land would
be affected and WaterWatch filed pro-
tests almost immediately.
In 2016, the Oregon Water Resources
Department referred the case to the Of-
fice of Administrative Hearings and in
2018, it held a two-week hearing on the
matter.
Judge Denise McGorrin issued in
February 2019 a proposed order recom-
mending approval with modifications,
and OWRD director Tom Byler issued a
proposed order to approve the proposal
in September.
The dam would be near the intersec-
tion of Victor Point and Fox roads and
was proposed to be 70 feet above the
ground, the area submerged was to be
384 acres, it would be able to store
12,000 acre feet of water and cost about
$84 million.
Most of the canyon where the dam
would have been created is filled with
trees and fields filled with tall grass in
the summer.
By all appearances, the dam and res-
ervoir seemed inevitable.
“This thing’s been going on so long
that a lot of people who were involved
from the start aren’t around anymore,”
Bielenberg said.
Generations farm the land
When Joel Rue’s grandfather moved
to Oregon from Minnesota in the early
1900s, he settled on a hilly plot of land
south of Silverton in an unincorporated
Marion County community known as
Victor Point.
Since then, generations of the family
have lived and farmed there.
The 900 acres Rue owns and the
See DRIFT CREEK, Page 3A