Welcoming Remarks: Cows And Creeks Workshop

Welcoming Remarks At the Cows and Creeks Workshop
Delivered by Crook County Judge Scott R. Cooper
Feb. 27, 2004, Meadow Lakes Restaurant, Prineville, Oregon

Crook County, 2952 square miles. You could fit the state of Rhode Island within our borders with a little room to spare.

Our county makes up the largest portion of the Crooked River Watershed, which also reaches into portions of Deschutes, Jefferson, Harney, Lake, Wasco, and Wheeler as well.

In total there are 9,548 miles of streams within the Crooked River watershed. To frame that number, the number of stream miles within the Crooked River watershed’s borders is just over 4 times the length of the entire Mississippi River mainstem.

It will come as a surprise to many, I’m sure, that according to our own Watershed Council, a whopping 95 percent of the water use within the basin comes not from wells below us but from surface water.

Of the total water usage in the basin, 99 percent is devoted to agriculture. In Crook County that is extremely important because Crook County’s dependence agriculture as a source of income is double that proportion found statewide, making the link between water availability and agriculture not only important but vital to the community’s economic well being.

The remaining 1 percent of water used for non-agricultural purposes—including domestic, industrial and recreational activity--support daily life and jobs for just over 32,000 people living in Prineville, Post, Paulina, Powell Butte, O’Neil, portions of Redmond, and Crooked River Ranch, Brothers, Culver, Hampton, Millican and all points in between.

The watershed is essential to the survival of some 315 species—316 if you count human beings. These include include 29 species of fish, 16 reptiles, 10 amphibians, 78 mammals and 182 birds. To put some perspective around the numbers 82 percent of the bird species found in Oregon can be found within the Crooked River watershed, and 57 percent of the mammals founding Oregon depend on those same waters.

The point of all these numbers is that that they make one thing clear: water is the thing that connects us all.

This playground we call Central Oregon flourishes only to the degree that the waters of the region are preserved and protected. Any I would submit that we are doing pretty well at that. Just a few more statistics before I go.

Out of our 9,548 miles of streams, only 401.8 are listed as water-quality limited by the EPA and DEQ—just over 4 percent.

Of the 315 species found within the watershed, only 42 are listed as threatened or endangered—just over 13 percent.

Despite widespread concern about groundwater, less than 5 percent of our water utilization is withdrawn from the acquifer of unknown capacity beneath us, a balance that should sustain us well into the future.

So over all, my view is that things are not as bad as you might think from reading hysterical media reports written and reported by people who, let’s face, don’t get much attention if when their lead stories and headlines are “All Is Well.”

Still, the point is that just because things aren’t as bad as they might be presented sometimes, we still need to be watchful to ensure that our Paradise Found doesn’t become Paradise Lost. And that’s the point of this workshop today: to talk about proactive ways to preserve the waters of our community and balance our physical and economic needs with the fundamental requirement that we all have—a bountiful, continuous supply of clean, fresh water.

As we being, I want to thank the Crook County Natural Resources Planning Committee which put this event together. This is the essence of what that group was created to do: to bring people together in a non-confrontational way to learn think together about ways we can mesh our many needs and co-exist peaceably in our community.

Thanks too to Coldwell Banker for stepping up to the plate with a sponsorship for this event. This is above and beyond your normal real estate seminar, and I appreciate you guys going the extra mile.

Finally, I want to thank the panel. I’ve had the pleasure at different times of listing to and talking with Gail Achterman, Wayne Elmore and Janice Staats, and I can tell you that there is an amazing amount of brainpower in this room right now. You’ve absolutely got some of the brightest bulbs in the business in this room right, and you’re in for a fascinating day.

So welcome one and all. Thank you for letting me talk to you, and let’s get on with the conference.