What happens above ground stays above ground, but below the surface, water doesn’t recognize fence lines. The aquifer beneath Deschutes County operates as a single, interconnected system where water use in one location directly affects availability throughout the region. Nearly 35,000 residents—approximately 16% of the county’s population—depend on private wells that tap into the same underground sources as those supplying municipal systems.
Yet, while city residents in Bend and Redmond face monitored consumption limits and targets to reduce usage to 143 gallons per person per day by 2040, rural well owners can pump up to 15,000 gallons daily without metering requirements or oversight. This regulatory disparity persists despite mounting evidence of the system’s vulnerability: groundwater levels near Bend and Redmond have dropped 20 feet over the past two decades, leaving at least 200 rural households with dry wells between 2022 and 2023 alone.
The Oregon Water Resources Department projects that if levels drop another 5 feet, more than 3,500 domestic wells across the county could fail. Efforts to implement basic monitoring through water meters face significant resistance from property owners, who view such measures as government overreach. This leaves water managers unable to distinguish between modest household use and excessive consumption, even as the shared resource continues to decline.
In an interview on the Source’s podcast Bend Don’t Break, Redmond Mayor Ed Fitch explained, “We have 20,000 exempt wells in the Deschutes [River] Basin, authorized to get 15,000 gallons a day without any regulation, any input at all from the state. When you look at what the authorized use is, if you take all of the cities in Central Oregon, we are authorized to use about 9 billion gallons of it a year. If you take the exempt wells, they are authorized to use 90 billion gallons a day.”
However, the difference is not just between rural and city areas. Between well owners, there can be a major difference in water distribution.
Deschutes County’s water system operates on a “first in time, first in right” priority, where the oldest rights holders receive water first, leaving newer users without guarantees, even when an excess supply exists. Local farmer and the President of Oregon Family Farm Association, Matt Cyrus, explained in a recent interview that, “A water right is a real property right, just like land. There’s a lot of laws around how it is treated. Normally, those who want to redistribute water are those who don’t have it. When people buy a piece of property, they should research their water rights. There’s a lot of people who don’t understand water rights.”
Water rights are permanently tied to properties and their initial agricultural purposes. The most established water entitlements in this region date back to the 1870s-1880s and were originally designated for potato cultivation. The agricultural focus has shifted over the decades due to plant diseases and market demands, and common crops now include wheat, rye, and alfalfa. These historical water privileges hold value even when properties move away from active farming; property owners risk losing their rights if they stop using their allocated water. This “use it or lose it” principle leads some landowners to deliberately consume as much water as possible to protect their entitlements, resulting in wasteful practices like maintaining enormous residential lawns in areas such as east Bend. Since no new rights can be allocated, existing rights have become valuable assets, maintained even by non-farmers, which in turn inflates property values.
To make matters worse, if a well goes dry, many owners are placed on a waitlist for drilling, which can cost thousands of dollars.
Understanding the Deschutes Watershed
Water from melting snow in the Cascade Range seeps underground instead of flowing over the surface like typical streams. Snowpack is the largest contributor to streamflow in the Deschutes watershed. Melting snow soaks into the ground to recharge the groundwater aquifer and feeds the Upper Deschutes primarily through springs.
This underground path feeds the Deschutes River through natural springs, creating more consistent water levels throughout the year compared to rivers that fluctuate dramatically with weather patterns. According to the Deschutes River Conservancy, nearly 80 inches of snow and 10 inches of rain account for the total annual precipitation in the Basin. This precipitation joins the water network via natural springs (underground water) or through creeks and waterways (surface flow). Because of its strong link to underground water sources, the Deschutes River has maintained consistent water levels, even in Central Oregon’s semi-arid climate.
Human water management has disrupted this natural balance. Reservoirs now capture winter water for agricultural use during dry summer months, creating an artificial seasonal reversal — less water flows in winter when nature intended more, and more flows in summer when natural levels would be lower. This timing mismatch disrupts the natural rhythms of the river ecosystem. Downstream from Bend, farmers divert substantial amounts of summer water for irrigation, further reducing river flows. Tumalo and Whychus creeks already run low naturally during summer and fall, but irrigation demands make these seasonal shortages even more severe. Similar reservoir management throughout the Crooked River system creates comparable disruptions to natural flow patterns.
Declining Water Levels
Groundwater levels near Bend and Redmond have plummeted dramatically over the past two decades. Hundreds of rural Deschutes County households have already experienced dry domestic wells recently, and the Oregon Water Resources Department has warned that continued declines could leave thousands more wells without water in the coming years. While the immediate crisis is clear, understanding its root causes reveals a complex web of factors. This decline in water levels is primarily due to climate change. According to the Oregon Water Resources Department, “Although there have been individual years of wet conditions over the past two decades, on average conditions have been drier than any other 22-year period in the past thousand years.” The Deschutes Basin Board of Control expressed cautious optimism at its recent town hall, citing a strong snowpack this season as reason for hope, while remaining guarded about potential improvements to natural streamflow.
Despite having enough snow in the mountains, the area still struggles with major system problems that cause water loss. The Deschutes County Planning Commission reports that this continued decline is affected by pumping (20%) and inefficient water transmission systems (10%). Irrigation canals also lose 40% to 60% of their water through seepage and evaporation, with only about half of the redirected water reaching its intended destination. Water waste from irrigation, including overspray and runoff, is a significant concern.
The effects can be seen throughout the region, such as in the North Unit Irrigation District, located near Madras. Most of the world’s carrot seed supply is produced there. However, because the irrigation district holds a junior water right among the other irrigation districts in the Basin, it can have trouble getting enough water to its farmers.
Agricultural Impact
The water shortage becomes more concerning when considering the county’s agricultural landscape. Deschutes County leads Central Oregon with over 1,000 individual farms, compared to 680 in Crook County and 480 in Jefferson County. Deschutes County farmers rely on substantial amounts of water to produce crops such as hay or alfalfa. Declines in water affect crop production, livestock feed and income for farmers.
Additionally, Deschutes County experiences widespread confusion regarding proper water use practices, with many agricultural operators employing inefficient flood irrigation methods, applying water to unsuitable terrain, including rocky areas and poor soils, and messing up irrigation equipment operations.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends employing a systematic approach to agricultural practices, including using drip irrigation, reducing runoff and installing a water meter to protect water resources. The USDA notes that, “if the water supply stops keeping up with demand, it may be caused by an increase in water demand, a well capacity (the amount of water produced) problem, or a pump problem. The water meter can be used to identify an increase in demand.”
Looking for Solutions
Other regions facing similar challenges have taken varying approaches to water management. Fresno County, California, which receives similar annual precipitation (10.95 inches compared to Deschutes County’s 12 inches), has implemented mandatory well metering and permitting programs to manage groundwater resources. Since the Fresno-area North Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency’s new policy began in May, the number of registered wells has more than doubled. The North Kings GSA has pointed out that, “without knowing where wells are located, what depths they are drilled and perforated to, and other construction information, the GSA (Groundwater Sustainability Agency) cannot effectively assess impacts of groundwater level declines on well owners. This information is essential for the continued reliability of both domestic and production wells.”
In Oregon, state laws do not require exempt wells to be metered. Oregon classifies wells as exempt from water right permit requirements when they serve specific purposes: stock watering, non-commercial gardening on half an acre or less, or certain domestic and commercial/industrial uses. Domestic wells qualify for exemption when daily usage stays below 15,000 gallons, while commercial and industrial wells receive exemption for usage up to 5,000 gallons per day. As Oregon Water Resources Department Public Information & Resilience Specialist, Jason Cox, explained to the Source: “Water supply wells have exempt uses under state law that do not require a water right permit. Commonly referred to as exempt wells, they can only be used for specific purposes and need to be beneficial, without waste. OWRD has the authority to ensure water usage from exempt wells is consistent with state law, and can require measurement devices if we feel it necessary to protect groundwater and ensure compliance.” Proponents of water meters argue that monitoring is essential for understanding usage patterns and protecting the shared groundwater resource.
Water meters are controversial in many rural areas. Property owners cite concerns about privacy and questions about government oversight. As Matt Cyrus put it: “Whiskey’s for drinkin’, water’s for fightin’.” Water meters, he adds, “are a hot-button issue and probably should be done on a case-by-case basis.” In Redmond Mayor Ed Fitch’s opinion, the biggest hurdles Central Oregonians face are the costs of labor and staffing.
Fitch feels strongly that some of these out-of-date policies need to be reassessed, saying, “We have to have some metrics that are agreed upon to implement water conservation, a per-capita use that encourages the best stewardship of water in cities. Outside of cities, I do think we need to reassess the exempt wells.” OWRD’s Jason Cox added: “Water meters on residential wells can be useful in ensuring water from exempt wells is being used legally, and the department can require measurement of water use for individual well owners. Generally, OWRD would deploy this tool when we are concerned about potential unlawful water use. Meters are also helpful to anyone who wants to monitor their water use and conserve groundwater, which is declining in the Deschutes Basin. We always encourage all water users to do their part to conserve this vital and limited resource.”
One step toward resolution was addressed in Oregon House Bill 3419, which would have standardized water measurement and reporting while providing cost-sharing between the government and irrigators for measuring devices. However, the bill did not get a vote this session and will need to be reintroduced in the next legislative session in order to move forward.
This article appears in Source Weekly July 10, 2025.
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Yeah, when you want to learn about water you get an art historian to explain it.
There are so many things wrong with this article starting with a failure to clearly differentiate between water that comes from wells on private property and water that is delivered to private property by irrigation companies with water rights. Contrary to the article farmers do not “divert substantial amounts of summer water for irrigation.” The water comes to farmers through a series of canals that are not owned by the properties they serve. Farmers don’t divert water – they pay handsomely each year for the right to use water from the river delivered by the irrigation companies. We operate under very strict schedules that dictate when we are able to take water for irrigation. The properties that benefit from this water are required to properly use this water or lose the rights to it. Annual surveys via site visits, drones, etc by the irrigation companies help assure compliance.
Going back to wells, which pull water from the aquifer and not the river, the article incorrectly attributes a declining aquifer “primarily due to climate change”. The current population of Deschutes County is estimated to be 212,000. The population of Deschutes County when my well was drilled in the 90s was approximately 91,000. Population growth, not climate change, is the primary reason for aquifer shrinkage.
The push to add meters to wells (it will never happen unless and until the County reimburses well owners for the cost to construct and maintain the wells) has NOTHING to do with carrot seed farmers in Madras.
The author uses issues in Fresno that are irrelevant to Deschutes County. “Without knowing where wells are located, what depths they are drilled and perforated to …” may apply to Fresno but it doesn’t apply here as the Oregon Water Resources Department has all the information in our well logs.
We spend a great deal of money (our dime … not the taxpayers) to build ponds, drill wells, lay irrigation pipe, plumb complex sprinkler systems, buy and maintain wheel lines and pivots, as well as paying handsomely for our river water use. We use our irrigation water to irrigate, while we use our wells to take showers, run our dishwashers and washing machines, and fill our pet bowls.
Water IS diverted from the Deschutes River, it’s used by farmers. Farmers get the water for free, paying irrigation districts for delivery. Irrigation districts are composed of and run by farmers, schedules and costs are their own doing. Before there were irrigation districts the Deschutes river ran at 600 csf (winter) to 900 cfs (summer). Now, with irrigation withholding and diversion, it runs 300 cfs (winter) and 1600 cfs (summer). Irrigation diversions are large, real and damaging to the river.
Geoff Reynolds … of course water is diverted from the Deschutes for farmers. It’s been that way since 1800s. The article implies that farmers are diverting the water – the irrigation companies, which have rights to the water (you do understand water rights?), distribute water to their patrons. When water levels are low our water is reduced (but not the amount we pay).
There are so many things wrong with this article its embarrassing, and I’m surprised the source allowed it to be published at all.
1: Fresno, California, has NOTHING to do with anything in central Oregon. Precipitation correlations are not a strong enough argument to validate using them as any sort of comparison, especially since you can look up well sites, depth, GPM and even draw down on domestic wells in Oregon because its all public information and recorded by the state.
2: This article fails to differentiate between domestic well use and irrigation rights. They are not the same thing. Domestic wells largely supply a single dwelling, much in the same way a single residence is supplied water from a water utility, and hose spigots on said dwelling and property.
Irrigation rights come from the irrigation districts such as Arnold, COID, Swalley, ect ect. People who have water rights to their property pay for them all year, despite only being able to use them largely from April/May through October. Also, when there is reduced flows the water supplied is also reduced and water can be turned off earlier in the season if the irrigation district deems it necessary.
3: The article attempts to make it sound as though everyone on a well is using 15,000 gallons of water on the daily, this is not true. My own well pumps an astounding 20 gpm (typical gpm is between 5 and 10 for residential wells), and it would take me 12.5 hours of running at max output to achieve 15,000 gallons. I’d burn my pump out long before I could do this for a substantial amount of days.
Many utilities also measure their customers water consumption in cubic feet, 100 cubic feet is 748 gallons of water. Even if a property on a private well had a lawn or garden and used 1000 cubic feet of water per month (you’d have a large garden or lawn if that’s the case) that’s only 7,480 gallons per month, a very far cry from 15,000 gallons daily.
To put that into better prospective, a person would need to use 2005 cubic feet of water daily to meet the 15,000 gallons; or, put another way, they’d have to use enough water to fill a standard sized swimming pool daily to hit that mark.
Given how much time people spend not at home, largely in the form of work, a residential well is not pulling the asserted 15,000 gallons a day.
4: Your math isn’t mathing. 15,000 gallons daily multiplied by 20,000 exempt wells is 300,000,000 gallons, not 90 billion gallons. Consider a course in basic math skills please.
Every one of the 20,000 domestic wells would need to use 12,329 gallons of water a day before they collectively hit 90 billion gallons for a year, let alone a day (eye roll).
5: This article also fails to realize that a lot of properties within (Bend) city limits, yes I’m talking about your neighbor on the 6000 sq ft lot, have irrigation rights that they too pay for all year just like the farmers. Ever seen a house that always seems to be running their sprinklers 24/7 in summer? That’s likely one of those water right holders. If you’d like to confirm your suspicions you can simply enter any address in Deschutes County into DIAL, then click summary under service providers and look at Irrigation District. If its serviced by one it will be listed.
It seems that pulling water rights, that don’t actually make your land more valuable like the article tries to claim because you’ll pay more in your irrigation assessments yearly then you would if you just had domestic water going through your sprinklers, to houses on standard city lots would conserve a lot more water than going after farmers who grow food for us.
6: The assertation that using drip irrigation in farming practices is practical on all farms, or the glaring insult that farmers don’t know what they’re doing when it comes to crop or herd irrigation, is asinine.
You cannot drip irrigate a hay field, you cannot drip irrigate any sort of field crop due to needing to amend soil at various times. You’d either disk or harrow your irrigation into oblivion, or have to dig it up constantly and reset it. Please go take some agriculture practice classes, drip irrigation is great for folks with yards not for farmers.
If, of course, there is a direct link to the USDA saying drip irrigation is best practices please post it. A search of the USDA website did not turn up any sort of findings regarding this for me.
7: Madras is not in Deschutes County, their water does not come from the same places as ours. Anyone can look up their water provider online and see where their water is coming from, irrigation district too. Maybe you should look into who’s supplying Deschutes County, and from where?
It largely appears the author of this article does not, in fact, have a knack for research.
@sundevils13 I’ve looked into your claims. The Source stands by our reporting.
@Forgotten2! I have looked into your concerns. As for your fourth concern, it was a quote. I have reached out to Ed Fitch, and he stated, “it is a math issue – approximately 20,000 exempt wells X 15,000 gallons per day X 365 is technically what the statute authorizes – not used of course but authorized compared to approximately 9 billion gallons all the cities in Central Oregon are authorized to use.” Regarding your other claims, I have looked into them. The Source stands by our reporting.
First off, thanks to the author for starting this conversation. It is a challenging one, but one that needs to be had. As someone who moved from urban property to rural property three years ago, I can attest to how broken and dysfunctional our water management is in this state (and many western states for that matter). It desperately deserves review and critical thinking and I’m grateful for the opportunity to have this conversation.
That said, as previously pointed out by other commenters, this article misunderstands and conflates surface water rights (aka irrigation districts) with ground water and wells. Worse even, it suggests farmers are “confused” about how to best irrigate to conserve water, relying on flood irrigation when other options are available.
Farmers are not confused. Farmers just don’t have tens of thousands of dollars to modernize irrigation equipment, especially when the delivery of such water is contingent upon uncontrollable factors and irrigation districts. If you’d like to find funding for these projects, I’m pretty sure most farmers have a much better understanding of the distribution of water than near anyone else because their livelihoods depend on it.
I see you “standing by your article” in the comments above, and that’s too bad. Because part of the responsibility of starting a conversation like this is keeping your mind open to errors and misunderstandings so that our community can work productively together to solve a mutually agreed upon problem. This article is too skewed in its presentation of the problem to be useful, helpful or productive.
Sarah, I’d like to invite you out to my property east of Bend. I’m happy to show you the irrigation, and how we are working hard to make a plan to conserve the surface water we are allotted. I’d love to help provide clarity on some of the issues that are poorly understood and represented in this article.
Sincerely, Liz – environmentalist, conservationist, and property owner
@ Sarah Isak-Goode
Redmond Mayor Ed Fitch explained, “We have 20,000 exempt wells in the Deschutes [River] Basin, authorized to get 15,000 gallons a day without any regulation, any input at all from the state. When you look at what the authorized use is, if you take all of the cities in Central Oregon, we are authorized to use about 9 billion gallons of it a year. If you take the exempt wells, they are authorized to use 90 billion gallons a day.”
This is far more than a “math issue”, this is literally incorrect reporting and the fact that you let the original wording stand without making any corrections/retractions to it only goes to help solidify that this article was written to inflame and without any genuine sense of journalistic integrity.
The source is perfectly within rights to stand by the article regardless of how misleading, misrepresenting and generally misinformed it is.