An Oregon water agency told the Ninth Circuit on Thursday that a lower court shouldn't have dismissed its challenge to certain federal irrigation decisions over concerns for tribal sovereignty, saying doing so would essentially end water rights lawsuits across the board.
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Dam Drought
The Deschutes Basin Habitat Conservation Plan was approved in December with the goal of increasing instream flows in the river. Then another drought year happened. Last summer the Wickiup Reservoir dried to just 1% of its capacity, the lowest it has been since it was built in 1949. In an average year the reservoir, which stores Deschutes River water, would be at about 25% of its capacity at the end of irrigation season, with just over 63,000 acre-feet. Last year s shortage illustrated a decade of drought and generous allocations of water rights. This shortage continued this year, and the reservoir is holding just over 60% of what it was last year and less than 40% of what it usually stores in June. This challenge arrives just months after the approval of the Deschutes Basin Habitat Conservation Plan for the Deschutes, submitted by eight irrigation district that reimagines what the Deschutes will look like.
Dry conditions are worsening a warm-water disease that’s sweeping through juvenile fish. Their deaths will create a future crisis for both fish and human populations.