Eric Flowers

Testing the waters below bend.Kyle Gorman remembers a time, not so long ago, when many folks in Central Oregon viewed concepts like water conservation with suspicion, if not outright contempt. Water flushed down the river was water wasted.

Gorman who now serves as the regional manager for the Oregon Water Resources Department was the Deschutes Basin watermaster back in the early 1990s. His job was to make sure that water right holders each got their allotment of water from the regional irrigation districts - a sort of water sheriff for farmers and ranchers.

When asked how the landscape of water and conservation has changed over the past decade and half, Gorman allows that he has a standard anecdote. Back then, said Gorman, if anybody spotted water in Squaw Creek (now Whychus Creek) in Sisters during irrigation season, a phone call was sure to follow letting Gorman know that he wasn't doing his job: water was going to waste, flushed away.

These days said Gorman, if anybody spotted a dry creek bed in Whychus, heads would be rolling as people lined up to find out why the RIVER wasn't getting its water.

"That's 180 degrees difference from when I started working here until now," Gorman said.

Denied tax exempt status, Mirror pond gallery faces closure. Nobody likes paying taxes, but when you're a small arts group with a federally recognized tax exempt status it probably stings just a little bit more - especially when the tax bill arrives to the tune of $28,000.

That's the case with Arts Central, Central Oregon's regional arts council, which was recently given an unprecedented bill for property taxes at its Mirror Pond Gallery and served notice that it could be on the hook for five years in back taxes.

It's a significant blow to Arts Central which has decided to close down the gallery in the next year, but it could have even larger ramifications for other arts groups and non-profits who count on retail sales from things like bake sales and thrift stores to support their charitable work.

"I can tell you for sure this is going to reverberate all over Oregon and all over the country," said Cate O'Hagan, Arts Central's executive director.

One of the beauties of public transportation? You don’t actually have to be awake during your commute. There's a revolution going on in the streets of America. And it ain't the one dreamed up by the marketing folks at Chevrolet. Quite the opposite, record high gas prices are pushing people out of their cars and onto other forms of transportation. Bike sales are up. Amtrak is breaking records and bus ridership is at its highest in 50 years and growing.
 
Right in our backyard, the number of people punching bus tickets is climbing steadily - roughly half a million riders have taken the Bend bus system since it started service in September of 2006. But at a time when public transportation is looking better and better, the future of Bend's fledgling bus system is in question.
The city council cut more than $200,000 out of the Bend Area Transit
(BAT) budget this year and is looking at much deeper cuts if voters
don't approve a proposed transit district in November. If approved, the
new district would take over administration of BAT and would remove the
burden of funding the system from the city council, which this year is
putting about $1.3 million into BAT from the city's general fund -
money which otherwise could go to services like police, fire, road
repair, etc.

A solitary moment.As a rule, backcountry skiers don't tend to make a lot of noise. Aside
from the occasional powder whoop, they tend to tread pretty lightly.
The
same principle holds true away from the slopes where backcountry
enthusiasts tend to keep a low political profile. But a new proposal
from a group of backcountry skiers is causing a stir in the outdoor
recreation community and could shake up the way the Forest Service
manages one of the most popular winter recreation zones near Bend.
What
some backcountry users want - there is no formal backcountry skiers
group in Central Oregon - is for the Forest Service to re-draw
snowmobile boundaries around Tumalo Mountain, moving the sleds entirely
off the butte.
Backcountry skiers are accustomed to working for
their turns, but this is a different kind of uphill battle that pits
backcountry skiers against well organized motorized users and their
supporters, which include, somewhat surprisingly, a number of cross
country skiers who benefit from the snowmobilers grooming efforts.
Skiers are also up against a historical "anything-goes" attitude about
winter recreation from the Forest Service, which much prefers "shared"
recreation opportunities for all user groups than to shut out one group
entirely, as would be the case on Tumalo.