Haters
To the ignoramus in the genitalia-compensating truck at the NE3rd/Greenwood light: Your yelling "Go back to Portland" at a bicyclist making a legal left turn among cars illustrates your poor social skills on so many levels! Having to loudly transfer thought to mouth? Having to interrupt someone who is trying to stay alive among hurtling tons of metal? To assume someone who's lived here close to 20 years is from elsewhere? I won't burden readers with a flood of examples. As a longtime resident, I find it sad that the population still includes those who refuse to get our "Be nice, you're in Bend" advice. Or DO you even live here???
—KarenLynn Robinson
Dredging Mirror Pond
What is lost in the discussion about dredging Mirror Pond is the individual financial impact on Bend's residents. The US Census Bureau estimates the number of households in the city of Bend to be 34,068 (www.census.gov). If the funding gap for dredging Mirror Pond is truly $6,400,000, as reported in Chris Miller's article in the September 27 issue of The Source, this means that each household in the city would be responsible for almost $188 of this unfunded amount. Adding each household's proportionate share of the proposed $18,000,000 already earmarked for stormwater outfalls, stormwater runoff improvement work, trail connections, riverbank restoration, etc., throws another $528 per household into the mix. Does a majority of Bend's residents really want to be on the hook for $716 per household to maintain Bend's little reservoir? This seems to me to be the relevant question.
—Bob Hammond
Why was Wickiup drained dry?
As of September 26, Wickiup Reservoir on the upper Deschutes is only 1 percent full. This popular kokanee and trout fishery is now gone. It is important to understand that releases of water into the upper Deschutes last winter to maintain habitat for endangered species had no effect on Wickiup. The reservoir was completely full at the beginning of irrigation season.
The real culprit is a trend of warmer, drier weather. In previous typical years, irrigation season begins with reservoirs that have been filled over the winter and which are replenished as snow melts. In the past there has been enough water even at the of end irrigation season to maintain a fishery. Water managers are aware of snow pack levels well before irrigation season begins and understand how their reservoirs will drain through the season.
Why didn't water managers make adjustments? They could have cut back deliveries or worked with each other to conserve water using some of the market based incentives uncovered during the Basin Study Work Group process. That would have been a reasonable insurance policy to guard against painful cutbacks following another dry winter.
Beyond that, a popular fishery has been destroyed. Draining Wickiup dry should be concerning to irrigators and anglers. Without a very wet winter Wickiup may not even completely fill for irrigation before being drained dry again. Hope for a change in weather patterns is not an acceptable management plan. A larger discussion of this issue can be found on my blog: www.coinformedangler.org.
—Yancy Lind
Yancy—Thanks for your insight. Come on in for your gift card to Palate!
—Nicole Vulcan
