Raising the price of irrigation water should encourage conservation
This guest column was originally published in the Bulletin on September 12, 2024
In the Deschutes Basin, wildlife species are blinking out and north Basin farms are going dry while senior irrigation districts continue to receive almost twice the amount of water needed to grow a crop in Central Oregon.
To meet existing and future water needs, the Basin’s senior irrigation districts need to ramp up financial incentive programs to conserve more water, in concert with the piping of private laterals.
An Oregon Spotted Frog in Dilman Meadows near Wickiup Reservoir. Photo: Brome McCreary / USGS
Farmers in North Unit Irrigation District fallow about half their land due to water shortages. Photo: Jan Kroon
What are financial incentive programs?
The 2019 Upper Deschutes River Basin Study defined the goal of “market-based” or financial incentive programs as using “price incentives to promote efficient water use and reallocation of existing supply to meet Basin needs.” The study described three main tools: temporary water right leasing, permanent sale of water rights, and water pricing.
In the Deschutes Basin, discussions about incentive programs have focused on temporary and permanent water transactions. Missing from the discourse is how water pricing could improve our water future.
What is water pricing?
Water pricing — or “volumetric pricing” — is charging for the volume of water used to incentivize efficient practices. In other words, if you use more, you pay more.
Almost every utility in your home uses an “incentive” pricing structure, charging you more when you consume more. For example, electricity and natural gas in Central Oregon often employ an incentive pricing structure, encouraging efficient use.
When it comes to water, though, using more doesn’t cost more. Whether you are turning on a hose in Bend or irrigating a field in Alfalfa, you may pay a little more when you use a lot of water, but generally your fee for water doesn’t change significantly based on the volume consumed. Why not create an incentive to use less?
An opportunity to improve water supplies.
Around the country, water suppliers have successfully implemented water pricing, and to great effect.
Irrigation districts and cities in places like Arizona, New Mexico, California, and even Central Oregon, have adopted water pricing fee structures, showing its versatility and potential to decrease water use by up to 30%.
If applied at scale in the Deschutes Basin, our cities and irrigators could shore up water supplies and improve our water outlook.
The clock is ticking.
In 2028, north Basin farmers will be required to release three times more water from Wickiup Reservoir during the winter, an important step forward in restoring the upper Deschutes River.
Ironically, many of the region’s most productive and efficient farms are in the north-Basin, and the improved river flows will come from the same pot of water they rely on. In other words, our rivers and productive farms are competing for the same limited pot of water, while we continue to waste water elsewhere. It’s necessary to pipe canals, but there is no scenario under which the current piping efforts alone will provide enough conserved water to meet the demand.
We need an integrated strategy to redistribute wasted water in the Deschutes Basin to support our rivers and buoy productive farms.
During the 2025 legislative session, we ask Oregon legislators to consider how we can incorporate water pricing to improve water supplies for our rivers, cities and agriculture.
If we don’t quickly scale solutions, our rivers and productive farms will be left out to dry.
Low flows occur in the Upper Deschutes River during winter when water is being stored in Wickiup Reservoir. Photo: Matt Oliphant
Jeremy Austin is the Wild Lands and Water Program Director at Central Oregon LandWatch.