In light of the recent lawsuit by Center for Biological Diversity and its demands for a funding guarantee for canal piping by the farmers and ranchers, is it really the farmers and ranchers who should be guaranteeing the piping?

The water being saved is for the benefit of the state and federal governments, Deschutes and Crooked river habitat and the federal government’s endangered spotted frog, so that makes the piping project to save the water for these beneficial uses a state and federal government funding responsibility, doesn’t it?

And we are going to have to suffer the loss of water aquifers and wetlands adjacent to the canal piping, again, caused by the governments’ needs for this water — and not for the farmers!

The only benefit that’s being talked about is a pressurized pipeline to run sprinklers, but that benefit could be a tradeoff for the burden of having to buy the irrigation equipment that can utilize the pressurized system.

And the farmer-owned canals technically could charge rent to the governments for having the pipelines in their canals that they now have to pay to maintain so that they can ensure deliveries of water.

So there are tradeoffs that we all can come together here as a public-private partnership to get this job done to the satisfaction of all parties!

So the Center’s lawsuit should be solely directed at those entities for the guarantee, and this would open the door to being able to fund an expansion of the piping projects by multiple construction crews, with the Army Corps of Engineers participating in this expansion and through a public-private effort get the canals piped in under 10 years.

This would satisfy the Center for Biological Diversity’s complaints that it’s taking too long for the canal piping to save the habitat and spotted frog.

Also regarding the winter water flow increases out of Wickiup that’s farmer-reserved waters for the next year’s food production, that’s for the benefit of the government’s habitats and endangered spotted frog. That means they should bear the burden of financing the pumping system downriver to recover the farmers’ water they are now going to be draining out of the farmers’ water storage at Wickiup, don’t you think?

And this approach would set a great example of how public-private partnerships can help quickly make a difference in the effects climate change is having on resources and endangered species, something we are all becoming.

Thanks for your time and consideration, and have a great day! 

Tony Newbill

Powell Butte , Ore.