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THE ASTORIAN • THuRSdAy, AuguST 11, 2022
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
DERRICK DePLEDGE
Editor
Founded in 1873
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Production Manager
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Circulation Manager
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Advertising Sales Manager
OUR VIEW
Why Oregon needs a water policy
O
regon desperately needs
a coordinated, effec-
tive, results-oriented and
clear water policy that the Legisla-
ture has approved and the governor
supports.
Without it, irrigators, municipali-
ties and other water users will have
to fend for themselves.
But that’s what they’ve had to do
for decades.
Around the state, water issues
have been all but ignored or
addressed only on an ad-hoc basis.
In Klamath Falls, for example,
water shortages have existed for
decades, yet the state has been inef-
fective in its efforts to resolve them.
In dry central Oregon, the rapid
population growth is straining
the water supply, but the state is
remarkably silent on how to address
it.
Across the state, water supplies
and quality are problems.
When irrigation districts do try
to expand water storage, the state
attaches strings that throw the effec-
tiveness of the project into question.
Near Hood River, for exam-
ple, the Farmers Irrigation District
invested millions of its own dollars
and dollars from the state to raise
the Kingsley Dam to increase the
amount of water stored behind it.
Only now the district’s leaders
worry that the state has attached
environmental strings to the proj-
ect funding that will mean more
water can’t be stored unless the
stream flow is higher than regula-
tors require.
The irrigators worry that stream
flow requirement is unrealisti-
cally high, but the Oregon Water
Resources Department disputes
that.
Either way, the state will have
helped fund water storage that
potentially can’t be used during the
driest years, when it’s needed most.
That may make sense to some-
Farmers Irrigation District
The Kingsley Dam near Hood River.
one, but to water users — and tax-
payers — it only demonstrates how
Oregon continues on a path toward
ineptitude on water issues.
People, agriculture and, yes, even
fish depend on Oregon policymak-
ers to get it right, but time and again
they come up with self-defeating
regulations.
Even when the Legislature
decides to help with water proj-
ects, its intentions are subverted. In
2013, it passed a water supply grant
program. The idea was to help irri-
gators and others build more stor-
age. But the rule-making was an
“unmitigated disaster,” said Jeff
Stone, executive director of the
Oregon Association of Nurseries,
adding that “rule-making is where
good bills go to die because every-
one relitigates all they wanted in the
first place.”
Environmental groups say
because public money is involved,
water users should expect to meet
higher standards.
That’s an interesting thought, but
the logic is missing. If the state’s
rules don’t follow the legislation
and instead make new storage unaf-
fordable or unusable, they fail to
accomplish what the Legislature
wanted.
Fearing unrealistic regulations,
some groups that need state help
for water projects avoid the Water
Resources Department.
Legislators see the shortcomings
of the current situation.
Some lawmakers support “place-
based” planning for water, allow-
ing communities to develop plans.
Unfortunately, they don’t have the
authority to put those plans into
effect, according to state Rep. Mark
Owens, R-Crane, and vice chair of
the House Water Committee.
Rep. Ken Helm, D-Beaverton,
said the state needs a “water czar,”
whom the next governor should
appoint. “We need leadership from
the governor. There’s no substitute
for that,” he said.
What Oregon needs, though, is
leaders in the Legislature who rec-
ognize the critical importance of
water statewide and will develop
a statewide framework that helps
communities implement water
plans.
The state’s role should be clear:
to help, not get in the way.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Borrowed time
I
t would seem that Tourist No. 2 is liv-
ing on borrowed time, sad to say. Has
anyone considered, once all of the legal-
ities are out of the way, placing her on
a pedestal, similar to the Peacock by
the Barbey Maritime Center, above the
high-water mark at the old ferry slip?
She’d be out of the water, and very much
at home at that location.
While most of the population proba-
bly doesn’t remember when Tourist No.
2 and her sisters were in service, she was
definitely part of Astoria’s maritime his-
tory, and deserves more than being cut
up for scrap. Like so many other things,
once she’s gone there’s no bringing her
back.
BRUCE QUINN
Dallas, Oregon
Tone-deaf
I
was appalled to see the Clatsop County
Republican Party raffling off an AR-15
assault rifle at our county fair last week.
How tone-deaf do you have to be, in this
day and age, to raise a few dollars by giv-
ing away a military-grade weapon — its
only purpose to destroy human life — at
a community event, focused on our chil-
dren and families?
In just the past few months, we’ve
seen 19 children and two teachers shot to
death in their classroom. Ten more killed
in their neighborhood grocery store. And
seven gunned down at a Fourth of July
parade, attended by families celebrating
the day in much the same spirit as those
attending our county fair. Every sin-
gle one of them was murdered, casually,
coldly and innocently, with the same type
of weapon given away thoughtlessly as a
fundraiser for the Clatsop County Repub-
lican Party.
Go ahead and crow about your Second
Amendment right to own a gun, but local
Republicans should be ashamed of the
heartless display of ignorance and greed
perpetrated in their names by their party
leaders. We don’t need these weapons of
war in our community, and we most cer-
tainly don’t need them hawked to our
children and families at our county fair.
I call on all Republicans to loudly
and unequivocally denounce their par-
ty’s leadership for even considering this
a valid gesture, and I ask our county
leaders to immediately ban this type of
deadly and immoral fundraising from any
future county event.
JEFF DENNY
Astoria
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