by Lindy Williams
Burns Times-Herald

On Tuesday, Dec. 20, the Greater Harney Valley — Groundwater Study Advisory, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Groundwater Study Team, and the Oregon Water Resources Department (OWRD) held a town hall meeting to discuss and inform the public of the groundwater study plan.

Judge-elect Pete Runnels introduced Martha Pagel and Steve Gingerich, who informed those attending and answered questions. Pagel is a private water law lawyer working alongside the groundwater study, and Gingerich is a research hydrologist with USGS. Justin Iverson, a member of the OWRD with the groundwater study team, was also present to answer questions.

Gingerich outlined the study by breaking it into its two phases. The first phase, which has already commenced and will come to completion in 2019, will delve into the geological makeup of the study area. USGS will study how much groundwater comes into the Harney Basin aquifers, known as recharge, and how much comes out, known as discharge. They will do this by studying water level data spanning back to the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s in some areas. Gingerich also stated that he would be adding current data gathered from wells being tested by the state. He also encouraged members of the audience to bring forward any data pertaining to the study.

“So essentially, as we add up our knowledge of the recharge and discharge and our knowledge of the rocks, we build a picture and we put numbers on all these features here and we figure out where groundwater is going,” Gingerich said.

At the end of this study in 2019, the USGS will publish a peer-reviewed report that details their findings. Gingerich stated that stakeholder involvement is important in studies of this nature and there would be many meetings to inform the people of Harney County of the findings. He emphasized that there would be no surprises when the report was released.

The second phase of the  study, which is scheduled to be complete by 2022, will include collecting the gathered data and feeding it into a model that can accurately portray how groundwater levels will behave in the future, using data gathered from the past and present.

This model, or “calibration” will be available to the public to input ongoing data and predict local groundwater levels.

Gingerich then turned the time over to Pagel, who answered questions pertaining to water laws.

Many members of the audience sought solutions to problems they’d experienced with a domestic well being located near a large irrigation well.

Pagel stated that, as the rules now stand, senior groundwater rights will be honored. This means that, if domestic well owners have the money, they can drill as deep as needed, but if they do not have the funding, there is little recourse to regain water.

Pagel repeatedly urged locals to work together to come up with solutions to groundwater issues while the study is ongoing. Counties who have worked together and made plans for water conservation, efficient usage, water selling, conservation through efficiency, water sharing, etc., will be less controlled by the state when the study finishes.

“If you don’t do anything at local level and the report says ‘decline,’ the state is expected to go through a process to establish a critical groundwater area. There are six or seven throughout the state already. The state then has the authority to tell people with established groundwater rights how to use water. Those with senior water rights are always going to have first priority to the water that is available. If local folks don’t come up with ways to manage water, you will get a list each year from the state with water allocation and how much water is available that year. They line it out by priority [seniority] and at a certain year, people get cut off,” Pagel explained.

“You do have power to influence, even if you don’t have power to implement all the different strategies that might come out of your planning process,” Pagel said.

In the meantime, Iverson made it clear that there would be no new groundwater rights issued for the duration of the study.

To end the town hall meeting, Mark Owens stated: “We have a couple choices. One, we get involved, or two, we do not. If we don’t get involved and we wait until the study is done, we get under a time frame and become a critical groundwater area in all parts of the county, very possibly. But if we do get involved through a process where we have community-based planning, we can start thinking about these issues as the rural homeowner, as agriculture, as conservation, and come up with a water management strategy. We have five years as the study goes to develop this thought process. That way when the study comes back, if it’s favorable, maybe we can expand the agriculture footprint and maybe we can help the rural homeowner through conservation with efficiencies. If it comes back negative, in all the parts of the county, or different sub-basins, we’ll have a strategy to keep that from becoming a critical groundwater area and also protecting our rural homeowner. We’re going to have to work on this together and it’s going to be a community-based project.”

For more information on the Malheur Lake Basin study, visit http://bit.ly/malheurlakebasin.

The next meeting of the Harney County Watershed Council will be held Jan. 18, at 5 p.m.