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- Oregon State University Water News
- Oregon Water Events
- Oregon Water News
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Inst. for Water & Watersheds
Oregon State University
234 Strand Ag Hall
Corvallis, OR 97331-2208
Phone: 541-737-9918
iww@oregonstate.edu
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Welcome back from the summer break!
No shortage of water news after a dry summer.
Point and Click article title to read more.
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Oregon State University Water News
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Twelve graduate students from the Central Asian countries of Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, as well as Korea, Thailand, and the US states of Colorado and Texas toured the Deschutes Basin from Wickiup Reservoir to the confluence with the Columbia River this summer as part of the WRS 532 - Applied Field Methods course. Trip leaders included legendary Oregon water engineer David Newton and Todd Jarvis of IWW. Meet the students on the river here.
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Oregon’s water infrastructure has served us well, but is showing its age. Oregon has underinvested in natural and built infrastructure to meet current challenges and have not adapted systems to meet the needs of a vibrant Oregon for the next 100 years.
Click here to learn more and offer your ideas.
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Once home to the Charcowah village of the Clowewalla, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde bought the 23-acre site from Washington developer George Heidgerken. The property is located within the tribes’ ancestral homelands and holds significant historical and cultural importance for the Grand Ronde.
“Willamette Falls is the second largest waterfall in the United States by volume and yet most Oregonians have never even seen it and we want to change that. We want to help restore the relationship of Oregonians with Willamette and with Willamette falls”
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The loan approvals, announced on Aug. 19, are part of EPA’s Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, or WIFIA, program and will help finance the $1.3-billion, multi-year Willamette Water Supply System program.
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) said in a statement, “In Northwest Oregon, it is a question of when, not if, a Cascadia earthquake will affect our region’s infrastructure.” She is referring to the Cascadia fault, located off the Pacific coast and runs about 621 mi., from northern Vancouver Island, B.C., to northern California.
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Across Oregon, water infrastructure is crumbling, funding is scarce and the disconnect between bureaucrats and communities has exacerbated tensions over water. But small Oregon communities like Newport are showing that citizen activism can make a difference.
Oregon has 75 high-hazard dams, which means if the dams fail, they will result in significant damage and loss of life. Of that number, nine are in poor condition and seven in unsatisfactory condition, according to Stephanie Prybyl, water policy analyst at Oregon Water Resources Department.
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All told, the cost to build a 12.4 million gallon underground reservoir at Washington Park in order to satisfy federal regulations has soared far past officials’ original estimate of $67 million when the project launched in 2009. In 2015, engineers at the Water Bureau said the figure was actually closer to $170 million. Today, the cost is at least $205 million.
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All summer, the reservation in Central Oregon had been without safe drinking water after a burst pipe led to a series of infrastructure failures. Around 4,000 people were impacted.
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Several Klamath Basin irrigators want the Oregon Court of Appeals to curtail water regulators’ authority to shut down groundwater pumping from aquifers that aren’t immediately next to surface waters.
Sarah Liljefelt, attorney for the irrigators, argued OWRD shouldn’t have “regulated off” their four wells to preserve water in the Sprague River because they don’t tap into a groundwater source next to it.
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