The Harney Basin is an

endorheic basin An endorheic basin (; also spelled endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes ...

in southeastern

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

at the northwestern corner of the

Great Basin The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja California. It is noted fo ...

. One of the least populated areas of the

contiguous United States The contiguous United States (officially the conterminous United States) consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the Federal District of the United States of America. The term excludes the only two non-contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii ...

, it is located largely in northern

Harney County Harney County is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census, the population was 7,495, making it the sixth-least populous county in Oregon. The county seat is Burns. Established in 1889, the county is named in h ...

, bounded on the north and east by the

Columbia Plateau The Columbia Plateau is a geologic and geographic region that lies across parts of the U.S. states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. It is a wide flood basalt plateau between the Cascade Range and the Rocky Mountains, cut through by the Col ...

—within which it is contained, physiographically speaking—and on the south and west by a

volcanic A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plat ...

plain. The basin encompasses an area of in the watershed of

Malheur Lake Malheur Lake is one of the lakes in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County in the U.S. state of Oregon. Located about southeast of Burns, the lake is marsh fed by the Donner und Blitzen River from the south and the Silvies Rive ...

and

Harney Lake Harney Lake is a shallow alkali lake basin located in southeast Oregon, United States, approximately south of the city of Burns. The lake lies within the boundary of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and is the lowest point in the Blitzen ...

. Malheur Lake is a freshwater lake, while Harney Lake is saline-alkaline. The basin is bounded on the north by the southern end of the Blue Mountains. The ridge of Steens Mountain separates the basin from the watershed of the

Alvord Desert The Alvord Desert is a desert located in Harney County, in southeastern Oregon in the Western United States. It is roughly southeast of Steens Mountain. The Alvord Desert is a dry lake bed and averages of rain a year. Two mountain ranges ...

to the southeast. No streams cross the volcanic plains that separate the basin from the watershed of the

Klamath River The Klamath River ( Karuk: ''Ishkêesh'', Klamath: ''Koke'', Yurok: ''Hehlkeek 'We-Roy'') flows through Oregon and northern California in the United States, emptying into the Pacific Ocean. By average discharge, the Klamath is the second la ...

to the southwest. The basin includes archeological sites of the Drewsey Resource Area.

Geography

The central basin receives an average of of rain per year, with the surrounding mountains receiving an average of per year. The center of the basin is flat and contains Malheur and Harney lakes, which receive the streams originating within the basin in the surrounding mountains, including the

Silvies River The Silvies River flows for about through Grant and Harney counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. The river drains of the northern Harney Basin. The headwaters are on the southern flank of the Aldrich Mountains, about south of Mount Vernon i ...

from the north and the

Donner und Blitzen River The Donner und Blitzen River is a river on the eastern Oregon high desert that drains a relatively arid basin, the southern portion of Harney Basin, from roughly 20 to 80 miles (30 to 130 km) south-southeast of Burns including Malheur Nation ...

from the south. Harney Lake is the actual sink of the basin, connected in some years to Malheur Lake but currently separated by constantly changing

sand dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, f ...

s. Both lakes cycle between open water in wetter years and marshes in drier years. The wetlands around Malheur Lake and Harney Lake form a

wetlands A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The p ...

oasis in the basin, providing a

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

for many migratory

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

species, including 2.5 million

duck Duck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl in the family Anatidae. Ducks are generally smaller and shorter-necked than swans and geese, which are members of the same family. Divided among several subfamilies, they are a form ...

s each year. Malheur Lake and its surroundings are embraced by

Malheur National Wildlife Refuge Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is a National Wildlife Refuge located roughly south of the city of Burns in Oregon's Harney Basin. Administered by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the refuge area is roughly T-shaped with the southe ...

. Harney County, Oregon, had a total population of 7,422 at the 2010 census, and Burns in the plain north of Malheur Lake is the only community with a population larger than 1,000. Dryland ranching is the basis of the area's economy, with relatively little

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has been devel ...

water available from the streams that enter Malheur Lake.

Harney Basin Volcanic Field

The Harney Basin Volcanic Field is a series of volcanic flows of rhyolite and of tuffs of ash flows in around

Burns, Oregon Burns is a city in and the county seat of Harney County, in the U.S. state of Oregon. According to the 2010 census, the population was 2,806. Burns and the nearby city of Hines are home to about 60 percent of the people in the sparsely ...

. The field is within the High Lava Plains Province.

Harney-Malheur Lakes watershed

The Harney-Malheur Lakes watershed is a Great Basin watershed., The adjacent

watershed of discharges into Malheur Lake and includes the river portion of the

. "''Alkali Field is located directly south of Malheur Lake, a few kilometers east of the Donner und Blitzen River.''" The High Desert Wetlands ecoregion is a set of Northern Basin and Range wetlands with in Oregon, including a large area around Harney and

History

The basin was formed approximately 32,000 years ago when

lava Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a fracture in the crust, on land or ...

flows formed the Malheur Gap, separating the

watershed Watershed is a hydrological term, which has been adopted in other fields in a more or less figurative sense. It may refer to: Hydrology * Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins * Drainage basin, called a "watershe ...

of the basin from the

Malheur River The Malheur River (local pronunciation: "MAL-hyure") is a tributary of the Snake River in eastern Oregon in the United States. It drains a high desert area, between the Harney Basin and the Blue Mountains and the Snake. Despite the similari ...

, a tributary of the Snake River.

Archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

evidence indicates the basin was inhabited as early as 10,000 years ago. Pollen records indicate that the climate, especially the level of rain and snowfall, has varied greatly since the end of the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

. Evidence of prehistoric fishing techniques is found at several sites. Evidence suggests that there existed in the basin several species—in particular, the chiselmouth, coarse-scale suckers, and

northern squawfish The Northern pikeminnow, Columbia River dace or formerly Squawfish (''Ptychocheilus oregonensis'') is a large member of the minnow family, Leuciscidae. This predatory freshwater fish is native to northwestern North America, ranging from the Nass ...

—that are currently found only in the

Columbia River The Columbia River ( Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia ...

basin, indicating that at some point the Harney Basin may have been connected to the Columbia. During wetter years, the lake level of Malheur Lake was raised to a depth of , allowing the lakes to drain over the Malheur Gap. In modern times, however, the lake level does not rise above in the wettest years. In the 19th century, the basin was inhabited by the

Northern Paiute Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ...

tribe. It was explored and extensively trapped by trappers of the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business di ...

in the 1820s. The basin lay far off the route of the

Oregon Trail The Oregon Trail was a east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of what is now the state of Kans ...

, but in 1845 experienced mountain man

Stephen Meek Stephen Hall L. Meek (July 4, 1807 – January 8, 1889) was a fur trapper and guide in the American west, most notably a guide on a large wagon train that used a trail known as the Meek Cutoff. A native of Virginia, both he and his younger brot ...

led an ill-fated party across the basin via Stinkingwater Pass, seeking a shortcut to

The Dalles The Dalles is the largest city of Wasco County, Oregon, United States. The population was 16,010 at the 2020 census, and it is the largest city on the Oregon side of the Columbia River between the Portland Metropolitan Area, and Hermiston ...

along what has become known as the

Meek Cutoff Meek Cutoff was a horse trail road that branched off the Oregon Trail in northeastern Oregon and was used as an alternate emigrant route to the Willamette Valley in the mid-19th century. The road was named for frontiersman Stephen Meek, who wa ...

. A total of 23 people died while the party wandered in the basin until finding water at the Crooked River. Because of its climate, it received sparse white settlements and was largely left to the Paiute until the late 19th century. Settlement pressures and conflicts with the Paiute in other areas of Oregon caused President

Ulysses S. Grant Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant ; April 27, 1822July 23, 1885) was an American military officer and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As Commanding General, he led the Union A ...

in 1872 to create a reservation for the Paiute encompassing Malheur Lake and much of the basin. Growing settlement pressures, in particular the discovery of

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...

in the surrounding mountains, as well as the interest of white settlers to form ranches in the region, caused the

Commissioner of Indian Affairs The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), also known as Indian Affairs (IA), is a United States federal agency within the Department of the Interior. It is responsible for implementing federal laws and policies related to American Indians and A ...

to abruptly terminate the reservation in 1879. The Northern Paiute would survive virtually landless until obtaining tracts of land near Burns in 1935. The basin has a widespread decline in groundwater which has put the region at risk of ecological and economic collapse. Irrigation pumping is dropping the water table as much as every year in one area.

References

External links