Oregon Water Caucus Updates

We NEED your input at the state level

Oregon Water Caucus

The Oregon Legislature's Water Caucus is a bipartisan, bicameral group of state legislators and staff committed to fostering a secure and resilient water future for all. The Water Caucus recognizes that tackling complex water challenges requires focused leadership, innovation, and long-term commitment to learning and working together. Core functions include facilitating learning, convening conversations, promoting informed decision-making, and elevating the priority of water-related policies and investments. The Caucus includes members of diverse backgrounds and is led with balance across the Legislature's House and Senate as well as the state's major political parties. Please see below for more information about the Caucus and related events, news, and resources.

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Sign-up to receive updates on our website: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/helm/Pages/Water-Caucus.aspx.

Submit Water Investment Needs by December 15

The Water Caucus is asking Oregonians to submit their current and future water investment needs via a statewide survey to help inform budget requests and strategic planning. In the time since the Statewide Integrated Water Resources Strategy was initially adopted in 2012, the state has been incrementally increasing its attention to critical water priorities, but the Legislature does not have a comprehensive inventory of water investments needs. In an effort to fill that gap, the Water Caucus invites water managers, users, stewards, advocates and members of the public to submit water investment needs by December 15 via a statewide survey: https://bit.ly/2024waterinvestmentsurvey. By doing so, Oregonians can help the Water Caucus understand investment-ready water projects. In addition to physical projects, water investment needs can include data, planning, and other needs that benefit the environment, communities, and economy. The survey is for informational and planning purposes only and does not guarantee funding or replace other legislative processes. View the dashboard at: https://bit.ly/2024waterinvestmentdashboard.

Click here to view the press release.

Statewide Water Conference - Submit Your Water Research Questions by November 29

Through Senate Bill 5506 (2023), the Institute of Natural Resources and Institute for Water & Watersheds at Oregon State University have partnered to convene a statewide water conference that will:

Identify water research needs;
Facilitate relationship building among sectors; and,
Develop statewide research and learning agendas.

This project complements existing efforts from state, federal, and local agencies; tribal nations; industry; academics; and, community and other organizations. They want to hear from as many Oregonians as possible to help them plan the conference and develop a research and learning agenda.

Contribute your water question here by November 29: https://oregonstate.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bPY99BAX5M9NzcG. The survey shouldn't take more than 5 minutes.

Participate in the 2024 PNW Water Year Impacts Survey by November 27

The goal of this survey is to gather information about impacts and response actions that were implemented during the 2024 water year (October 1, 2023 - September 30, 2024) due to either abnormally dry or abnormally wet conditions. The survey should take about 15 minutes to complete and your responses are vital for informing the PNW Water Year Impacts Assessment. Please fill out the survey by November 27: https://uwashington.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dm8Pll3zna1eLFs.

You can view past Water Year Impacts Assessments here: https://www.drought.gov/dews/pacific-northwest.

Drought related information and resources specific to Oregon can be found here: https://www.drought.gov/states/oregon.

Federal Funding Opportunities Email List

The Governor’s Natural Resource Office created a Federal Funding Opportunities mailing list to share available natural resource-related Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funding opportunities. The BIL and IRA have allocated billions of dollars towards natural resource conservation and management. This is a once in a generation opportunity to take advantage of the large amount of federal dollars available to successfully fund the state’s priority natural resource needs and build a more resilient Oregon in the face of a changing climate. Sign up to receive email alerts: https://omls.oregon.gov/mailman/listinfo/fed_funding_opps.

Representatives Helm and Owens Release Initial 2025 Water Package Information

Representatives Ken Helm (HD-27) and Mark Owens (HD-60), co-chairs of the Water Caucus and the House Committee on Agriculture, Natural Resources, Land Use, and Water, have released initial information describing potential contents of a 2025 Water Package. View the summary table and a slide deck. These materials have not been reviewed or endorsed by the Water Caucus, but provide a starting point for conversations. Please reach out to Representative Ken Helm's office with questions or feedback. If there are water policies or investments you would like Water Caucus staff to track, please be in touch.

Water Break Out Session at OBC Leadership Summit

Join Representative Helm and Owens and the Governor's office for a discussion about water solutions for the 2025 session and beyond. The Leadership Summit will be held on December 9 in Portland. Limited funding is available if registration costs are a barrier, please email Harmony Burright (harmony.burright@oregonlegislature.gov).

Klamath Irrigation District encourages our patrons and the people we serve to provide comments to this body related to the following information:

Klamath Surface Water Management and Efficiency Enhancement

Previous generations of Klamath farmers invested heavily in building infrastructure to promote economic and social stability in our region. Federal and State policies denying water to the former lakes and marshlands of the Klamath Valley have drastically altered the Pacific Flyway, our groundwater use, and the stability of our local economy and have torn at the fabric of security.

Oregon can choose to invest in the Klamath Reclamation Project to assist in developing solutions to ensure the irrigation infrastructure can safely and efficiently deliver water to the agriculture engine of Klamath County to mitigate shortages created by federal actions affecting our refuges and other beneficial uses. K.I.D. supports Klamath Basin-wide efforts to restore the environmental, ecological, and economic foundations of our communities and desires to be a partner in recovering threatened and endangered species.

Klamath Irrigation District is partnering across the region to develop opportunities for low-head hydropower generation, in-channel solar panel installation, and control systems to maximize the efficiency of water management, attempt to find water savings and supplement power rate increases brought about by dam removal.

This immediate and critical need is highlighted by the concerns K.I.D. has brought before numerous stakeholders over the past 5 years.

Water Conservation Efforts
Agricultural Production Challenges
Water Storage Disagreements with Federal and State Agencies
Food Security Challenges
Emergency Preparedness
Groundwater Management
Drought Mitigation

Klamath Irrigation District’s Renewable Energy Development and Urban Canal Risk Mitigation Initiative

This initiative aims to develop a combined hydrokinetic turbine and floating solar array in Klamath Irrigation District’s upper C Canal and upper A Canal aiming for a total generation capacity of 1.2MW of renewable energy. Before infrastructure installation, portions of the canals will undergo bank hardening to enhance community safety and promote water conservation.

Emrgy, a partner of Klamath Irrigation District, specializes in hydrokinetic and canal floating solar technology that offers reliable and cost-effective renewable energy. Klamath ID’s water infrastructure can generate renewable energy which can bring significant benefits to the local community, to include potential to benefits for the Klamath County School District and Conger Elementary School within the Klamath Falls City School District.

This project will include construction of a concrete retaining wall, floating solar panels, and other needed infrastructure improvements to improve water conservation and efficiency across the entire water delivery system, increasing water supply reliability and addressing local water conflicts related to the Klamath Reclamation Project. This project’s multi-benefit will result in reduced excessive seepage, transit evaporation losses, over deliveries, and unnecessary canal breaks, and mitigate hazards to students and staff at the Henley School Complex, the BNSF railroad, traffic on Oregon Highway 39 and six single-family homes adjacent to the #1 Drain. This project will also address the removal of invasive weed species and the reintroduction of native vegetation. The project's dual energy approach, resource optimization, and environmental benefits make it a compelling investment opportunity for our community.

Klamath Managed Aquifer Recharge

Partners with Klamath Irrigation District are exploring opportunities for managed aquifer recharge. Topics being explored include:

Water quality assessments and geochemical compatibility
ASR well design
Groundwater modeling to quantify MAR benefits
Spreading basin design for MAR
Automated monitoring data collection systems (e.g., telemetry for groundwater levels, surface water flows, etc.)
Regional and local aquifer characterization studies
Hydraulic well performance testing

A Canal - Aging Infrastructure Modernization

This project will provide for the planning and design necessary to modernize Klamath Irrigation District’s aging A Canal and Tunnel. As the headworks of the Bureau of Reclamation’s Klamath Project, the A Canal and Tunnel convey water stored in Upper Klamath Lake into a system of canals, laterals, and drains that serve agricultural water providers, agricultural water users, and national wildlife refuges across 122,000 acres in the Klamath Basin. Both the flood-irrigated agricultural lands and the wildlife refuges provide stopovers for migratory birds along the Pacific Flyway, and the Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge has, until recent droughts, provided riparian corridors and habitats for federally listed and tribally significant fish species. The aging and inefficient A Canal and Tunnel, which have stood largely unaltered since 1906, lose a portion of their water to seepage and evaporation in a basin challenged by ongoing drought conditions. The project will develop alternative analysis and engineering designs for modernizing the A Canal and Tunnel in a manner that will eliminate these water losses and improve long-term water supply resiliency for agricultural and environmental water users.

The project will identify mechanisms to make available the water saved by modernizing the project to the Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge to support habitats for tribal and federally important species. Klamath Irrigation District will engage with local, state, federal, and tribal agencies and organizations throughout the project to ensure that it meets community needs

Habitat Conservation Program Education and Exploration

Klamath Irrigation District is exploring opportunities to leverage various aspects of the Endangered Species Act, including the title transfer of the Klamath Irrigation District infrastructure and the ESA Exemption Application.

The mitigation and enhancement measures required to be established to gain "take" coverage of listed species must be reasonable and "necessary and appropriate to minimize the adverse effects" of K.I.D.'s proposed action on the species or its critical habitat.

Mitigation measures being explored include:

live propagation

transplantation,

habitat acquisition and improvement.