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DateNameCompanyComment
 Helen Seidler I am writing to ask you to oppose the limited license application filed on March 2 by KCDG to pump and store groundwater in its lakebeds it built in 2014. As you know, KCDG has been denied conditional use permits and land use approvals by the Deschutes County Commissioners, so on those grounds alone the application should be denied. KCDG proposes to pump from its well and store groundwater in these lakes for use either as a private amenity or for firefighting purposes. It is not at all clear how these stated purposes would serve the public interest without an adequate management plan and public-private partnership to manage the water. Groundwater is a public asset serving many agricultural and wildlife needs. It is not appropriate to fill these large unpermitted lake beds subject to evaporation and destined for use for private recreation. Please reject this application of KCDG. Thanks you, Helen Seidler
 Warren Holt I stand opposed to the above temporary use application for the following reasons: 1. The property is 160 acres with 53 acres of irrigation rights for a rumored 12-15 home sites. To this end, each home site would have evenly divided 3+ acres of irrigation rights with each having a BIS (Bulge in System) lake to facilitate using the water rights they would own. An irrigation pond would provide a lake for each property for “aesthetic” purposes. 2. The well was drilled on-site to provide residential water, actually a community water system, for the 12-15 proposed homes. The well production is 50gpm. Additionally, the proposed application (LL-1689) calls for 50gpm also, or a total of 100gpm out of a 50gpm already drilled well. 3. The use of the two lake “holes” which were never approved by DOGAMI to be dug or to “store water” are not appropriate in the case of the shallow boat race track or to dip water for fire suppression and should not even be considered. 4. If the logic of this application is approved, it is setting a precedent that everyone in the high desert who has 10-20 acres could convert their existing residential well to fill an “aesthetic” and fire protection pond. This is an unrealistic use of our ground water source. It conceivably would begin drawing water through the underground rock strata of the aquifer at an accelerated rate causing neighboring elder dated well levels to drop. 5. The County has already disapproved the use of the two lakes for private owners surrounding the lakes to use for recreation. 6. The 53 acres of irrigation water rights from Tumalo Irrigation District (TID) was already envisioned by KCDG for recreation use. The private owners could use the 8+ acre lake, with 57acft of storage for aesthetics. The 12.5 (68acft of water) on the 5-foot-deep lake was envisioned for speed boat operation with high potential of gas and oil pollution, as well as noise to the surrounding existing property owners. 7. I have yet to find the developers plans in print for home sites, septic, roads or electrical. I cannot agree with there being any use at all that the State Water Board would approve of for the 5-foot-deep lake and the use of the 7-foot-deep lake solely for fire protection. In regards to aesthetics, Shevlin Park/Tumalo Creek is less than a mile away and the Deschutes River is only a couple more miles. 8. If KCDG were to rethink the development, they would fill the lake from their irrigation rights and pipe to pumps on each property to be used for irrigation. To this end, the smaller lake could also be either totally abandoned and refilled back to natural land as currently surrounds the lake. This would require only the number of weirs for distribution of the irrigation rights from TID be built to match the lots with water rights. After the water rights are transferred each lot would have a storage pond to pump out of, therefore having their own personal “aesthetic” water feature. These would be where the homeowners would like in the form of a small realistic irrigation BIS water reservoir. The property is currently zoned R-10 Residential. 9. Our wildlife in Deschutes County is very important to us. To that end, we have held for posterity Deer and Elk Corridors and Wintering Grounds. The corridors should not be broken by scouring the land to bare earth as has been done around these two unapproved lakes, but rather should be brought back to forest floor condition. 10. Lastly, if the well is used to fill the smaller, deeper lake, and there is no outflow then as the summer progresses the “stationary water mass” will stagnate and will warm up to the point of breeding mosquitos and algae. This in future will force home owner’s association to try to find some form of abatement to alleviate health issues (e.g. West Nile Virus) and for the growing flora and fauna. This would most likely be in the form of a chemical treatment since warm water, only 7 feet deep will not respond only to aeration by a motorized sprayer. In short KCDG seems to have taken a stance of construct first and then ask forgiveness if found in violation. To grant a short term, limited duration authorization for use of ground/well water for this project, without substantially researching, and monitoring, the final use of land/project is not realistic. Nothing has been granted by the County in the way of a permit to develop the land as I noted in paragraph 7. Show the public why KCDG cannot use TID irrigation water to provide for an aesthetic on the way to watering crops or animals. Use the well for what it was dug for – residential/community water system and ½ acre of garden lawns around the house. Please do not approve this application – for the land, animals and the local population.
 William John Kuhn Regarding: OWRD Limited License LL-1689 I live at 65575 Sisemore Road which is west of Tumalo half way between Bend and Sisters, and pretty much in the middle of the Tumalo Winter Deer Range. Our properties have both wildlife area overlay and a landscape management area overlay as does the applicant in limited license application LL-1689. I'm familiar with these zoning requirements and how county ordinances work, and sometimes don’t work. When the County’s planning staff issued the Land Use Compatibility Statement (File No. 247-17-000016-PS) that is included in the LL-1689 application, it knew that the project involved the use of large, unpermitted reservoirs (for which the county had already denied land use permitted reservoirs) and that the applicant did not disclose this material fact in their LUCS application. Knowing this, the staff did not give notice to the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife affording them an opportunity to comment regarding the wildlife issues. Review by these and other state agencies should be made in the OWRD’s consideration of LL-1689 application to fulfill the OWRD’s responsibility to ascertain whether the granting of the license would harm the public interest since county staff did not undertake such a review. We rely on county and state authorities, such as the OWRD, to protect and preserve the public interest in the use of our water and land use laws and the ultimate character of our county and state. One of the limitations of county land use laws is that the property owner, within a landscape management area and a wildlife area overlay, once they've applied for a development process, they are automatically limited on what it is that they can do on their property. But prior to that, prior to their application, they can do whatever they want, within reason. For example, on my property, I’m required to keep all of the trees intact between the road and my structure-- because of the wildlife and the landscape management rules. I’m not allowed to build more than X number of feet back from the road. However, if I were to jiggle the rules a little bit, I can go in there and cut all the trees before we even apply for a permit and nobody's going to be able to deal with that after the fact. Please don’t let the applicant in LL-1689 have water to fill reservoirs that never should have been excavated in the first place and without even having obtained the requisite permits beforehand. Ex-post-facto regulation or punishment is NOT how we should have to deal with developers who didn’t follow the law in the first place. If we had a water and land use system of rules and regulations that was made out of concrete reinforced with rebar and steel, things would be cool and everything would be great. But we don't. We have a system that's made out of little bricks. And those little bricks can be cut out, the mortar taken out and you can remove that brick. The wall will still stand, but there's a hole in the wall. And then somebody else can come over and cut out another brick over here and you'd cut out another brick over there and pretty soon the wall's going to fall down. That's what happens all too often as the public interest is harmed by “death of the thousand cuts”. We the people and our wildlife are entitled to adherence by private parties to the rule of law, and to the enforcement of those laws by public agencies. I'm disappointed that we don't have better rules and regulations, but what we have is sufficient to compel denial of the LL-1689 application. We've been dealing with this situation relating to the applicant’s unpermitted reservoirs for almost three years. The applicant should not be allowed to continue its unlawful and unsound use of our resources. The harm to the public and our future generations would be too great. You know this situation could be used as an example. I'm asking you to please do what you can to help protect the wildlife habitat that we are losing along with our water resources. Allowing water to be stored in the oversized reservoir structures on the subject property does harm to our wildlife resources along with being very wasteful of water which will be used just for evaporation. Do what you can to help regulate uses of water that are inappropriate, especially within a wildlife area overlay zone. Thank you. William Kuhn Residence: 65575 Sisemore Road Bend, Oregon 97703 Mailing: Post Office Box 5996 Bend, Oregon 97708-5996
 Jeff Coughenour I am truly astounded that we have had to fight this company for the last couple of years. We have said all along that this is a development ploy. The fact that we have to keep submitting comments over and over shows that if you have enough money, it is easier to push through your agenda in Deschutes County. We live in this neighborhood, and are worried that the mosquitoes that have recently started showing up will carry disease. Also, if this is a "bulge" in the Tumalo Irrigation District, how do they propose to pull water out of this waterski lake that has no outtake. The lake has a black bottom which absorbs heat thus creating more evaporation. This family wants to have a large trout lake and a waterski lake on their property and sell houses around them. Period. They obviously have the money to perform surface mining, road improvements and water storage and road work on our community property without permits or repercussions. Soon they will be making money by building homes around their waterski lake to pay for it all.
 David Fox March 21, 2017 Oregon Water Resources Department, We live near Alfalfa, adjacent to a nearly completed (without land use approval) water ski lake constructed by KG Ranch, LLC owned by our neighbor, Gordon Smith in Deschutes County.  He commenced construction in September 2014.  This occurred a few months after KC Development Group, LLC, the applicant in LL-1689 illegally excavated and filled its two unpermitted reservoirs, one of them being, and already used as, a competition-style water lake.  At the time it seemed to us that KCDG’s unpermitted behavior was an encouragement to KG Ranch, LLC.   Fortunately, in our situation the county took action to stop the project, first with a voluntary compliance agreement and then a hearings officer decision that the water ski lake is indeed a water ski lake and is not a permitted use.  [Note:  KG Ranch had argued it was an enlarged irrigation pond intended to be used for washing potatoes and growing a variety of greens and vegetables year-round, but the hearings officer saw through that charade, finding that the physical characteristics, size and scale were indisputably that of a competition-style water ski lake].   KG Ranch also disturbed federally designated wetlands and a county-designated flood plain.   One lesson to draw from our experience is that letting one private party dig first and ask for permission later (only when compelled to ask for post-facto permission) can and will spawn disregard of the laws relating to use of water, land and natural resources by others.   The proposed use by KCDG as set forth in its application LL-1689 of groundwater for storage as an amenity and perhaps on some occasions as for fire-fighting is another charade.  If allowed by the OWRD, this would result in an egregious waste of scarce water resources owned by the public.   The evaporative use of the water that KCDG wants to pump and store ultimately to use for water skiing purposes (as is clear from the public record) is absolutely not in the public interest.   Allowing an applicant to be conferred a license to use water based on false pretenses, which even if true constitute at wasteful use, would be a dereliction of the duty the OWRD has to manage to water resources of the people of this state properly.   We will appreciate your consideration of our concerns and for you to act in the public interest by denying LL-1689. Thank you. David & Carla Fox
 Mark Rudin Wow where do I start. First off our canal was destroyed and piped by tumalo irrigation then all our trees have died along the old canal because they have no more water. My land has been trashed by this move. I was told it was to conserve water but that is a joke. I have 2-1/2 acres of water rights by the way. Now that my canal is gone and my trees are dying and dead I'm left with a giant strip of weeds!! Not cool!! Meanwhile the water I was told would go out and be stored at tumalo reservoir but that was not the truth. It went to our new out of state neighbor so he could have a PRiVATE WATER SKI LAKE and use the tumalo water to promote there new exclusive sub division. They tell people there saving the day and storing the water for fire suppression but that is not what's going on. We have been scammed for our local water by more developers!! This kind of business needs to STOP. Thank you. Mark Rudin
 Kris Jewett We are very concerned about the possibility of KCDG using well water to supply their lakes. We rely on a well to supply our household water, as do approximately 35 other families with property adjacent to or near KCDG property. The massive use of water to fill lakes (that have no useful purpose) could compromise some or all of the neighborhood wells. The lakes were constructed illegally, filled with Tumalo Irrigation water illegally and have no practical useful purpose. One was constructed for the intended use as a water ski lake and the other for KCDG private residents enjoyment. There are no reasons for either to be used for fire suppression, the Deschutes River and Tumalo Reservoir are very close by. KCDG has no permit to store water in the lakes. The evaporation rate from each lake is substantial and with no needed practical use for such a large amount of water, it would definitely be detrimental to the public interest to allow KCDG to use well water for their lakes. The lakes (especially the water ski lake) have very steep banks that we believe to be dangerous to wild life and people. Deschutes County denied KCDG's applications for retroactive conditional use permits for both lakes last year. The lakes were built and filled without permits and yet hey are still here. KCDG continues to try to piecemeal through the process, this time hoping the OWRD will not pay attention to this ongoing attempt to deceive the licensing agencies and sneak through the system. Please pay attention to their past and present insincere attempts to gain permission for the construction and uses for the lakes that they know to be illegal. We would like to see required removal of the lakes with a return to the wildlife habitat that existed before they were built. The use for this water is completely for KCDG and has no benefit for the public. It could possibly harm our entire neighborhood's water supply. It would definitely "impair or be detrimental to the public interest". Please consider this license very carefully and inform us of your decision. Thank you, Kris Jewett and Ken Graham
 Stephen Lister We strongly object to KC Development Group, LLC’s limited license application LL-1689. Licensing KCDG to pump groundwater from within our neighborhood to keep its evaporative lakes filled with stagnant water for so-called “amenity” use would be an unjustifiable and wasteful use of our region’s groundwater resources. It would also extend the charade promoted by KCDG that disingenuously recharacterizes its uses of land and water. This is their transparent attempt to circumvent the fact that the lakes should not have been excavated and constructed in our neighborhood. They seek to escape the consequences of their having done so and to enable themselves to benefit privately by converting the state’s public water resources to their sole, selfish, wasteful use. The lakes were constructed without required permits and without any meaningful opportunity for public agency review or public comment before the fact. Our local county officials determined conditional use permits are required for the uses that since 2014 KCDG has been making of the land. Last year, the county commissioners made a final decision denying such permits after they were applied for, post facto, by KCDG. These man-made structures displaced a large amount of habitat and space for wildlife, removing vegetation under and around the lakes and covering large areas with liner and water for recreational and other private uses at the expense of our wildlife resources. They are inappropriate man-made features in our residential community which is zoned RR-10 with Wildlife Overlay zoning. We bought our residence because of the wildlife and natural habitat values and characteristics of the neighborhood. It is an outrage for KCDG to have significantly injured the public interest in protecting our wildlife resources (which this area is designated for in the comprehensive plan) by excavating the land and creating the lakes. They certainly should not now be filled with groundwater that will evaporate and be removed from the underground aquifer(s). Waters from these aquifers are used by our community for domestic use. This would compound, and in no way alleviate, harm to the public interest that has been done by KCDG. We own the residence on Tax Lot 2300, adjacent to KCDG’s Lot 828, only about 500 feet from the water ski lake. We own irrigation rights in the Tumalo Irrigation District. Our sole source of domestic water supply is from wells of Klippel Water Inc., of which we are owners with many of our neighbors. Its two wells are situated on property that is also adjacent to KCDG’s property. The volume of water that KCDG proposes to pump and store is far in excess of what is used from the same ground source by all our neighbors combined. KCDG would have to pump water constantly from its wells for several years just to fill its lakes and mitigate continuous water loss due to evaporation. This is an unsustainable process. Would it be reasonable for domestic water users to store water on the surface, allowing much of it to evaporate and without making any economically justifiable private or public use of such water? Obviously not. KCDG should not be allowed to extract and waste such large volumes of water from the aquifer(s) in our area, putting us all in jeopardy of someday soon being without water. KCDG has made no showing whatsoever that there is enough water available in the ground locally to ensure adequate domestic water supplies would be available after they pump out their proposed licensed amount of water (which is incremental to and much more water than historically has been pumped out from the area). It is not sufficient for KCDG or the OWRD to merely speculate that water licensed to KCDG for “amenity” (read: evaporative) use would not cause harm to others or to the surface water levels in adjacent Tumalo Creek and the nearby Deschutes River. There are clearly public health and safety risks that must be resolved satisfactorily before a determination could be made that there is not public harm. The KCDG lakes are within the designated drinking water area for the Klippel Water, Inc. wells on which we and other homeowners depend. The harm the newly constructed water ski lake may do to the Klippel wells has not yet been addressed. In the last, almost three, years since the lakes were constructed and filled with water under invalid pretenses by TID, our neighborhood and our property been visited with swarms of gnats that never were present in the neighborhood previously. KCDG’s visual “amenity” is altering the neighborhood’s ecosystem and creating opportunity for blight and nuisance. Additional harm to the general public would be to disregard KCDG’s misbehavior in having illegally filled the lakes and KCDG's construction of them without land use approvals and without having applied to the OWRD for reservoir permits for their large reservoirs (they are certainly not mere “ponds”). Issuing to KCDG a license to store water would send an entirely wrong message to the community that it is OK to disregard law and to do whatever one wants to do, without consequence, despite doing harm to the public good – a very dangerous precedent to set. We request that the WRD notify us, in writing, of its decision regarding this limited license application. We expect the OWRD to deny the limited license application LL-1689 in its proper exercise of its stewardship of the state’s water resources for the benefit of, and to avoid harm to, the public interest. Stephen Lister/Mark McDowell 63410 Fawn Lane Bend OR 97701
 BEVERLY MORALES Absolutely NO to using 124.76 acre feet of well water to fill a recreational lake for watering skiing! 1.The lake KCDG plans to put the well water in has not been permitted by Deschutes County. It should not exist. 2. As far as we neighbors know, there was never a ground water study done to assure there would be adequate water for the addition of 12-15 new homes in the area. Our area is zoned RR10. 3. To pump well water into an (unauthorized) recreational lake is gross misuse of the water used by 40 plus families depending on well water for their lively hood. 4. At least 8 property owners immediately around the lake are retired, living on a fixed income. Speaking only for our family, we do not have the money to drill a new well, should the ground water level drop. We have and maintain our own well for drinking, bathing, laundry, etc. We are very conservative with its use. 5.Our precious ground water would only evaporate sitting in an (unauthorized) lake. 6. There is a plan to continue to draw from the ground water to keep the lake filled, year after year. That’s just WRONG! 7. As proven from Florida and Oklahoma, displacing of ground water can ultimately cause sink holes and minor earth quakes. 8. One of the arguments used for adding water to the lake is to support firefighting. There have been and are still water sources available. Tumalo Irrigation District Reservoir and Tumalo Creek which have been used for years. 9. There is no such thing as enough water. It is the most fought over commodity worldwide, and we just do not need to add one more fight!
 Veronica Newton Hudson The lakes cut across land that has for millennia been a part of natural wildlife migration routes in the high desert, creating a major barrier to movement for both mule deer and elk. Construction of the lakes has destroyed tens of acres of natural habitat and food sources that are always in short supply during the winter months, particularly for mule deer. Starvation leads to failures in reproduction (spontaneous abortion of fetuses etc) resulting in the declining deer populations. The lakes were constructed, without the appropriate permits, on land that had been restored to its native state as habitat for wildlife. Water is an invaluable resource everywhere and particularly so in a desert environment. It seems inappropriate to use water to maintain lakes that have no significant use and also have a negative impact on the original inhabitants of the land. The lakes should be removed and the land restored to a natural wildlife habitat consistent with its Goal 5 status.
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