Protect and Restore Free Flowing Oregon Rivers

Protection for a 17 mile Reach of the Nehalem River as Oregon’s next State Scenic Waterway is Just a Signature Away

Thanks to WaterWatch and a coalition of advocates, 17 miles of the Nehalem River on the Northern Oregon Coast have been proposed for designation under the state’s visionary Oregon Scenic Waterway Act.

The Oregon Scenic Waterway Act was voted into law in 1970 by Oregon citizens to protect Oregon’s most beloved rivers. The Nehalem River is a particular favorite of dedicated boaters, anglers and hikers and provides important habitat for a myriad of fish species, including coho, spring and fall chinook, steelhead, chum and sea-run cutthroat. 

If officially designated, the state must then manage and protect the Nehalem’s natural resources, scenic values and recreational uses. This includes instituting safeguards to ensure instream flows, preventing dams, and protecting native fish populations.

In February, the Oregon Department of Parks and Recreation and the Oregon Water Resources Commission voted unanimously to recommend to Oregon Governor Kate Brown that she designate this iconic river as the state’s next scenic waterway. 

The recommendation is now sitting on the Governor’s desk and awaiting signature. With a stroke of the pen, the Governor could complete this designation and protect 17 miles of the Nehalem River. It’s time to finalize protection for the Nehalem.

In 1961 the newly-built Bowman Dam choked off flows to the iconic Crooked River in favor of storing 155,000 acre-feet of water in the resulting Prineville Reservoir. While Congress declared that these stored waters were for the primary purpose of irrigation, local irrigation districts would eventually only claim about half.

Meanwhile, the dam, and related irrigation diversions, wreaked year-round havoc on the Crooked’s fish populations. This in turn sparked a decades-long struggle by river advocates to protect the roughly 80,000 acre-feet of unused Prineville Reservoir
water for the benefit of downstream fish and wildlife.

After many failed attempts, river advocates and irrigators struck a compromise: The 2014 Crooked River Collaborative Water Security Act. Through this compromise, irrigation districts with contracts with the Bureau of Reclamation as of 2011 were
granted first dibs to stored water, the City of Prineville got 5,100 acre-feet of water to remain instream to serve as mitigation for new groundwater pumping, and downstream fish and wildlife got the roughly 80,000 acre feet of water remaining.

Under the Act, the Bureau of Reclamation – in consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine  Fisheries Service – is required to shape annual releases of this 80,000 acre-feet for the “maximum biological benefit of  downstream fish.” Importantly, not only does the Act require the Bureau to release this water, it requires the Bureau to provide these flows for the full reach from Prineville Reservoir to Lake Billy Chinook.

The Act was operative upon President Obama’s signature in 2014, but the Bureau has still failed to fully implement this law.  While the Bureau is technically releasing water for fish, it has thus far failed to ensure that these flows stay in the Crooked River for the whole reach from Prineville Reservoir downstream to Lake Billy Chinook. The Bureau and the State of Oregon are looking the other way as water promised to Crooked River restoration under federal law is diverted to the fields of downstream irrigators.

Why has the Bureau failed to meet is obligation under the law? Despite plenty of rhetoric in the basin about following collaborative pathways, and the passage into law of just one such collaborative solution, local irrigation districts have convinced the Bureau to hold off on protecting this water instream. 

It’s time for the Bureau to stop obstructing the restoration of the Crooked River. This deal was brokered four years ago. The
irrigators and the City of Prineville have their water. It is time for the Bureau of Reclamation to follow the law and for Crooked
River fish to get their water.

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