STATE
MyEagleNews.com
Wednesday, December 8, 2021
Feds could fund water pipeline
By MICHAEL KOHN
The Bulletin
By MATEUSZ
PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin
The Pilot Butte Canal is lined with homes near Northeast Empire Avenue and 18th
Street in Bend.
the Deschutes River to 300 cfs, a signifi -
cant jump from current winter releases of
105 cfs.
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, higher winter fl ows in the Deschutes
River inundate a greater area of the river
channel, potentially shortening the distance
that frogs travel to spring breeding areas.
Flows greater than 300 cfs may also create
additional overwintering areas for frogs.
The Habitat Conservation Plan requires
that winter releases reach 300 cfs by 2028
and 400 cfs by 2033. Horrell said that
increase can be achieved through on-farm
water effi ciency programs, such as con-
verting farms from fl ood irrigation to pivot
sprinkler systems.
“Once this thing is piped, pressurized
water deliveries will really help us with that
extra hundred,” said Horrell.
Piping the canal is not without contro-
versy. The canal runs behind more than 100
houses in northwest Bend, and some resi-
dents have tried in the past to prevent the
canal from being piped in order to keep the
waterway alive.
In 2016, action by residents prompted
the National Park Service to list a 1.5-
mile segment of the canal in Bend on
the National Register of Historic Places.
That means the canal can stay but doesn’t
require water has to run through it. Hor-
rell explains that the pipe can be placed
in the dry canal or can be rerouted along
a diff erent route. That would leave the
canal intact but without water.
Jeff Perreault, one of the homeowners
whose property backs up to the canal, said
he is not aware of any current legal action
against the irrigation district, but all eyes are
on its current piping plans.
“I’m confi dent that if COID attempted
to violate the historic district then they’d
have a fi ght on their hands,” said Perreault.
“It appears that they’re taking the right
approach, which would be to pipe around
the district, and they should be applauded
for that.”
Organizations that have been critical
of the main canal piping projects include
the nonprofi t Central Oregon LandWatch,
which says the irrigation districts can get
more bang for their buck by focusing their
eff orts on on-farm conservation and the pip-
ing of smaller ditches and laterals.
Tod Heisler, director of the rivers con-
servation program at Central Oregon
LandWatch, says a major problem with the
open laterals is that water often runs off the
end of the ditch, but piping lateral ditches
would prevent that from happening. It
would also allow meters to be installed at
each farm on the ditch.
“Then you can invest in more effi cient
irrigation, such as moving from fl ood to
sprinklers, and have better control over the
water for potential water marketing transac-
tions,” said Heisler. “Real progress can only
be made when COID insists that patrons
reduce water waste.”
FTC looks into supply chain disruptions
Capital Press
WASHINGTON, D.C. —
The Federal Trade Commis-
sion is ordering nine large
retailers, wholesalers and con-
sumer good suppliers to pro-
vide detailed information that
will help shed light on the sup-
ply chain disruptions and how
they are causing hardships for
consumers and harming com-
petition in the U.S. economy.
The orders were sent to
Walmart, Amazon.com, Kro-
ger, C&S Wholesale Grocers,
Associated Wholesale Gro-
cers, McLane Co., Procter
& Gamble, Tyson Foods and
Kraft Heinz. The companies
will have 45 days to respond.
In addition to better under-
standing the reasons behind
Judge blocks Oregon
salvage logging
the disruptions, the study will
examine whether supply chain
disruptions are leading to spe-
cifi c bottlenecks, shortages,
anticompetitive practices or
contributing to higher con-
sumer prices.
The orders require the
companies to detail the pri-
mary factors disrupting their
ability to obtain, transport and
distribute products; the impact
these disruptions are having in
terms of delayed and canceled
orders, increased costs and
prices; the products, suppliers
and inputs most aff ected; the
steps the companies are tak-
ing to alleviate disruptions;
and how they allocate prod-
ucts among their stores when
they are in short supply.
The FTC is also requir-
ing the companies to provide
internal documents regarding
the supply chain disruptions,
including strategies related to
supply chains; pricing; mar-
keting and promotions; costs,
profi t margins and sales vol-
umes; selection of suppliers
and brands; and market shares.
In addition, the agency
is soliciting comments from
retailers, consumer goods
suppliers, wholesalers, and
consumers regarding their
views on how supply chain
issues are aff ecting compe-
tition in consumer goods
markets.
EUGENE — A federal
judge has issued a tem-
porary restraining order
against salvage logging in
two areas within Oregon’s
Willamette National Forest
aff ected by wildfi res last
year.
The two forest projects
had been approved for tree
thinning by the U.S. For-
est Service before wildfi res
tore through the national
forest in September 2020.
The Cascadia Wildlands
and Oregon Wild environ-
mental nonprofi ts claim
the agency has unlaw-
fully changed the proj-
ects to allow salvage log-
ging without analyzing its
eff ects under the National
Environmental Policy Act.
“Salvage has substan-
tially diff erent impacts to
the forest than thinning,”
Meriel Darzen, attorney for
the plaintiff s, said during
oral arguments Dec. 3.
The
environmental
organizations didn’t ini-
tially oppose the Lang
Dam
Project,
which
involves 630 acres of com-
mercial harvest, or the
Highway 46 Project, under
which nearly 2,000 would
be logged.
However, the plaintiff s
fi led a lawsuit alleging the
Forest Service had revised
the projects “behind closed
doors” to allow for salvage
logging, which wasn’t
considered in the original
NEPA analysis.
“That’s
problematic
because it undermines the
trust,” Darzen said.
While the Forest Service
has discounted the signifi -
cance of the changes, there’s
a big diff erence between
thinning living trees and
removing substantially all
the trees from a burned area,
she said.
“I’m not sure how much
less minor you can get,”
Darzen said.
Not only has the nature
of the projects changed, but
the environmental circum-
stances within their bound-
aries have as well — aff ect-
ing spotted owl habitat,
stream fl ows and noxious
weeds, she said.
“Even on the areas that
are not burned, you’re deal-
ing with diff erent baseline
conditions,” Darzen said.
Emma Hamilton, attor-
ney for the federal gov-
ernment, said the project
changes don’t cause “irrepa-
rable harm” and don’t justify
the “extraordinary relief” of
an injunction.
An injunction would
most immediately aff ect
about 345 acres slated for
logging under the Highway
46 project, which are needed
to meet the Forest Service’s
contractual obligations, she
said.
“They need to be har-
vested right away because
dead and dying trees deteri-
orate,” Hamilton said.
The agency has scaled
back the acreage approved
for commercial logging
under the revised plans,
specifi cally dropping har-
vest units within riparian
areas, she said.
Even with the changes,
the Forest Service is adher-
ing to the original goals of
the projects, Hamilton said.
“Plaintiff s are not look-
ing at the scale of these
minor variations,” she said.
“This isn’t a wholesale
change. It certainly isn’t a
bait and switch.”
At the conclusion of
oral arguments, U.S. Dis-
trict Judge Ann Aiken in
Eugene said she was disap-
pointed the Forest Service
didn’t behave with more
transparency in revising the
projects.
The wildfi res changed
the conditions within the
project boundaries in ways
that couldn’t have been
foreseen when their envi-
ronmental impacts were
examined under NEPA,
Aiken said.
Though
the
judge
agreed to issue a temporary
restraining order halting the
projects, she urged the par-
ties to consult with a fed-
eral magistrate judge on a
potential settlement.
The parties should try
to resolve the issue without
litigation, Aiken said. “It
behooves all of you to get
to the table right now.”
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BEND — For more than a century
the Pilot Butte Canal, an open waterway
that funnels irrigation water from Bend to
Redmond, has been a regular feature of
the High Desert landscape. President Joe
Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs
Act could change that.
Central Oregon Irrigation District,
which maintains the canal, is preparing to
tap into the infrastructure bill for funds to
pipe the 22-mile long canal.
Craig Horrell, the general manager of
the district, said if funds become available
work could start next year.
Converting canals to modern pipelines
helps irrigation districts achieve the water
savings they need to stay in compliance
with the Deschutes Basin Habitat Conser-
vation Plan. The plan, fi nalized last year
after 12 years of development, calls for
districts to raise the level of the Deschutes
River in winter to support Oregon spotted
frog habitat. Horrell said the easiest way to
do that is to pipe the canals, which are noto-
rious for losing water into the porous Cen-
tral Oregon soil.
Completion of an environmental impact
statement is one of the steps that must be
completed before the district can apply for
funds, said Horrell.
“We feel like we are shovel ready in a
year, so we do believe we will be able to
capture some of that money for these pip-
ing projects,” said Horrell. “But we have
to complete the permitting process, which
includes the EIS and public meetings.”
The cost to pipe the Bend to Redmond
section of the canal could reach $250 mil-
lion and will take seven to 10 years to com-
plete, said Horrell.
Central Oregon Irrigation District is cur-
rently piping a 7.9-mile section of the Pilot
Butte Canal between Redmond and Smith
Rock. The $30 million project, scheduled
for completion in April, will save 30 cubic
feet of water per second.
Piping the Bend to Redmond stretch will
save an additional 156 cfs, said Horrell. The
amount of water conserved annually by pip-
ing the Bend-to-Redmond segment will be
over 90,000 acre-feet, which is almost half
of Wickiup Reservoir.
Horrell anticipates that once the Pilot
Butte Canal is fully piped, the irrigation dis-
tricts can increase the release of water into
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