Central Oregon Irrigation District is a municipal corporation to provide

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering of plants) 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 bee ...

water for

Central Oregon Central Oregon is a geographic region in the U.S. state of Oregon and is traditionally considered to be made up of Deschutes, Jefferson, and Crook counties. Other definitions include larger areas, often encompassing areas to the north towards t ...

, U.S. The canals serve agricultural and industrial users in the arid lands between

Alfalfa Alfalfa () (''Medicago sativa''), also called lucerne, is a perennial plant, perennial flowering plant in the legume family Fabaceae. It is cultivated as an important forage crop in many countries around the world. It is used for grazing, hay, ...

, Bend, Redmond, Terrebonne, and Powell Butte. Among its 4,000 or so individual customer accounts, it also provides municipal water to the city of Redmond, neighboring subdivisions, and parks and schools in Bend. The district manages more than of canals serving about of lands within a rough area of .

History

The Carey Act of 1894 led to the creation of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation which initiated many irrigation projects by authorizing the federal government to contract with the states for arid land reclamation. The State of Oregon authorized entrepreneurs to build and operate canal systems for profit. The right of agricultural users to the water were provisional until irrigation actually began producing crops as provided by the Carey Act. On June 30, 1950, the State of Oregon decreed that the Carey Act had provided ample time for interested water users to have staked a water rights claim, and ended the eligibility opt-in period to receive irrigation water. It took until 1958 to finalize Deschutes River water rights for all users. The Central Oregon Irrigation District was established in 1918 from the merging of water systems near Bend. Among the earliest was Pilot Butte Development Company, established in 1902 by Alexander M. Drake, a capitalist who arrived in the area in spring of 1900 by covered wagon, lured by the possibility of irrigating upper Deschutes County and dry air for health reasons. Drake's company platted Bend and built a lodge for which Drake Park District and

Drake Park Drake Park is a park in Bend, in the U.S. state of Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon' ...

are named. Before any water flowed, Pilot Butte was sold to Deschutes Irrigation and Power Company. Service began with irrigated in 1904. Two primary canals— Central Oregon Canal and Pilot Butte Canal—were complete by 1907. Pilot Butte Development Company was foreclosed upon, leading to creation of the Central Oregon Irrigation Company in 1910. The North Canal Dam was connected to Pilot Butte Canal in 1912. The company's ownership was given to its users who created the Central Oregon Irrigation District on December 17, 1917, although legal challenges continued until a court resolution emerged July 9, 1921. Systematic promotion (''Free land in Oregon, in the richest grain, fruit and stock section in the world!'') and immigration of almost 2,000 people to Bend had the system serving by 1924. The Ward Road–Gosney Road segment was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 18, 2019.

Engineering

Creating canals through the Central Oregon plain required the most modern technology and engineering in its day. The land contains thick layer of

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

—a dense, abrasive volcanic rock—underlying relatively thin soils with scant organic matter, typical of the

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

arid desert. Canal routes were chosen carefully to use gravity (instead of pumps) and minimize the amount of excavation.

System

Slightly more than half the system is in Deschutes County, a little less than half in Crook County, and roughly 5% in Jefferson County. The source of the entire system is the

Deschutes River The Deschutes River ( ) in central Oregon is a major tributary of the Columbia River. The river provides much of the drainage on the eastern side of the Cascade Range in Oregon, gathering many of the tributaries that descend from the drier, easte ...

: The Central Oregon Canal diversion is near the southwestern corner of Bend at . It generally flows eastward about before turning northward. The Pilot Butte Canal diversion is at the north end of downtown Bend at and generally flows northward, closely following U.S. Highway 97. A At the crossing, the Crooked River's elevation is and the canal's water level is measured with Google Earth, though the canal level drops by two feet to the downstream (north side) side. high flume carries Pilot Butte Canal across the Crooked River at .

References

External links

Historic American Engineering Record Heritage Documentation Programs (HDP) is a division of the U.S. National Park Service (NPS). It administers three programs established to document historic places in the United States: Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American E ...

(HAER) documentation, filed under Bend, Deschutes County, OR: ** ** ** ** ** ** **{{HAER , survey=OR-63 , id=or0343 , title=Deschutes Irrigation and Power Company Canal , photos=4 , data=12 , cap=1 , link=no Buildings and structures in Crook County, Oregon Buildings and structures in Deschutes County, Oregon Buildings and structures in Jefferson County, Oregon Canals in Oregon Geography of Oregon Historic American Engineering Record in Oregon Irrigation Districts of the United States 1918 establishments in Oregon