Records per page:
DateNameCompanyComment
 David Arnold Several weeks ago I requested a copy of the Water Masters Review of this transfer. After reading the review a sent and email to the Water Master about my concerns. Here a copy of that email. Thank you for providing me with the Water Master Review for this transfer. In reading the response to question 1, I have some concerns about the use of water in the last 5 years. Using Google Earth I was able to view the well location today and go back 30 plus years to look at the well site . In the images I viewed there was no clear evidence of water use. The certificates issued for this water right required a water meter be installed to verify water use. In a search of the OWRD website I could not find that any water use was ever recorded. As I understand water law if a water right is not used in 5 years it is subject to being cancelled. If I am looking at the evidence correctly this water should have been cancelled years ago. Since I received no response, I am submitting my concerns to the Public Comment for Transfer: T14165. Also I see the Ground Water Review has not been entered into the transfer request. I would ask that the Public Comment be left open for 2 weeks after the GW Review is posted to the Transfer Request. In reviewing GW Reviews for other transfers, most if not all have reflected negatively to the Deschutes River. Thanks for allowing me to comment.
 David Arnold Several weeks ago I requested a copy of the Water Masters Review of this transfer. After reading the review a sent and email to the Water Master about my concerns. Here a copy of that email. Thank you for providing me with the Water Master Review for this transfer. In reading the response to question 1, I have some concerns about the use of water in the last 5 years. Using Google Earth I was able to view the well location today and go back 30 plus years to look at the well site . In the images I viewed there was no clear evidence of water use. The certificates issued for this water right required a water meter be installed to verify water use. In a search of the OWRD website I could not find that any water use was ever recorded. As I understand water law if a water right is not used in 5 years it is subject to being cancelled. If I am looking at the evidence correctly this water should have been cancelled years ago. Since I received no response, I am submitting my concerns to the Public Comment for Transfer: T14165. Also I see the Ground Water Review has not been entered into the transfer request. I would ask that the Public Comment be left open for 2 weeks after the GW Review is posted to the Transfer Request. In reviewing GW Reviews for other transfers, most if not all have reflected negatively to the Deschutes River. Thanks for allowing me to comment.
 David Arnold I would ask that OWRD will deny this request to transfer water rights to Pinnacle Utilities. This water right was developed by Central Oregon Pumice in October of 1997 to water roads and the pumice pits for dust control. When the well was drilled the original well log listed the water use as irrigation. That was crossed out and changed to Quasi Municipal. There is no way this was ever used as quasi municipal. In 2003 the Central Oregon Pumice Business shut down and sold the property with the water rights. Since then there has been no recording of water use. I recognize that quasi municipal rights are not retired after 5 years of no use, this water right has gone 20 years of no recorded use. This certificate should be changed to back to irrigation. Another concern is the impact to the Deschutes River. Ground water studies done for applications of smaller water requests have shown major impacts the Deschutes River. Please reject this application to transfer the water rights.
 Scott Summers  Once they are up and running, how much more water are they going to be taking out of the ground then currently. will i notice any difference in my water pressure? If my well goes dry after they start pumping water out of the ground, are they going to pay to drill it deeper..
 Fred J TanisselfComments on Thornburgh Request for Permanent Transfer of Water Right, T-14165 I am concerned with the Thornburgh Applicants purchased water rights that have been transferred to a resort property POA. These temporary transfers have been made, as I understand it, for purposes of meeting the required OWRD mitigation requirements for the planned resort groundwater consumptive water demand and to provide water during resort construction. Several of these transferred water rights may be flawed for mitigation. Thornburgh T-14165 appears to make the Tree Farm transfer permanent without a specific mitigation requirement. The Thornburgh Applicants transferred two water rights (LeBeau and the Tree Farm) from locations a long distance upstream from their resort property for mitigation of expected consumptive groundwater demand. Both of these transfers are complicated by large regional irrigation diversions and large groundwater pumping by the City of Bend for municipal water supply. I have doubts that during the irrigation season water returned to or left instream as a result of the transferred rights would actually reach Deschutes and Crooked Rivers locations impacted by resort groundwater withdrawals. It appears that application of these two transferred water rights will not meet the Deschutes County no net loss standard during the irrigation season. I ask the OWRD to make a thorough evaluation of the effectiveness of Tree Farm transferred water rights for purposes of mitigation of the proposed Thornburgh resort groundwater withdrawals. I oppose making this water right transfer permanent. Periods of severe drought are projected for the Upper Deschutes Basin. Water levels in area wells have fallen at a rate of one foot per year. The Applicants have requested a permit for a 1460 AF withdrawal of groundwater per year to provide water for 950 residences, 425 overnight lodging units, several planned lakes, and two golf courses. Thornburgh development will result in an excessive demand for water during a period of drought, negative impacts on the flows in the Middle Deschutes and Crooked Rivers, and additional declines in area groundwater levels. Sincerely, Fred J Tanis
 James Guild I am opposed to the proposed Permanent transfer of T-14165. Our ecosystem cannot support transfers of pre-mitigation issued water rights because we are in a massive drought that was never contemplated even when the Deschutes Mitigation Rules were put into effect in 2002. OWRD should not keep blindly pretending that "all is well" in the Deschutes Basin where the aquifer is dropping precipitously. Area wells are being deepened by the hundreds all along the LaPine to Terrebonne corridor and it's time for OWRD to seriously embrace our changed climate. Recharge is not happening; glaciers have been lost. I understand how things have always been done; but this is not reason TODAY to ignore the science of hydrologic connectivity of ground waters to surface waters. And it's absurd TODAY to hold fast to an unlimited acquifer. Our supply water has dimished since this water right was issued. OWRD has the opportunity to lead our community with wisdom and resolve, to follow current science and acknoledge it's own reporting (the IR OWRD issued in July 2022) when it proclaimed in that IR of a groundwater right that the Deschutes River, Crooked River and surface waters, recreation, and area wells would be adversely impacted by groundwater withdrawl at the proposed POA as is requested from this Transfer. OWRD have forte to look yourself in the mirror. OWRD please steward our public waters and protect our ecosystem and deny this permanent water transfer. First do no harm, Thank you
 PHYLLIS SWINDELLS I oppose this development! We are not prepared to allow them to tap that much water daily. Bend is developing too fast and we need to take things slowly, so that we do not loose our precious resources. "Intimate lakes"? That means more water. This development will impact the wildlife that we cherish so much as well. I am not opposed to development in general, but in my opinion, this is just too large of a development that will suck our natural resources and we will never get them back. You cannot go back!
 Robert Hammond My entire family is adamantly opposed to this ill-conceived transfer of water rights. If the developer is allowed to proceed with this scheme, those water rights from many miles distant will do nothing to protect the declining aquifer surrounding the proposed resort. Even without this development, the water level in my well, located close to the resort, has been steadily and significantly declining in the 13 years I have owned the property, The water requirements of a development as large as this, located in a region with an already-declining aquifer, will have a catastrophic effect on those thousands of residents already in the region who rely upon their private wells for their water supply. The financial effects of diminishing property values and the subsequent reduction in the region's tax base will be staggering.
 Jan Wilson More than two decades ago, when the Thornburgh resort was originally proposed, I visited the site with some Tumalo friends and noted with alarm that my shoes were dusted with desert soil as I was standing right where the water skiing lake is slated to be. Extraordinary and obscene amounts of water are required to bring that ridiculous vison to fruition. Despite lots of time and money since then, this proposal has only gotten more outrageous, and the current request to transfer and move water rights from other locations continues in the same vein. I totally oppose the request, and sincerely and vehemently urge WRD to deny it. The reasons to deny this permit amount to five main ones: (1) impact to surface water instream rights, (2) impact to neighboring groundwater rights and farming operations, (3) impact to listed threatened and endangered species, (4) impact to tribal rights, and (5) impact to the community's tourism. None of this is in any way beneficial to the public interest, and nothing can be done to mitigate the harm proposed to either the local or the global environment. The Deschutes and Crooked Rivers, and increasingly Whychus Creek, are nationally (and even internationally) recognized for the fast flowing, whitewater fly-fishing potential, with a myriad of threatened and endangered fish species holding on, due to decades of community and governmental efforts to improve the habitat and protect instream water rights. To allow a private golf course and water-skiing lake to suck enormous amounts of water out the that system, in order to create a "destination" out of the desert that already is a valuable natural destination in its own right is just unconscionable. Moreover, to steal the water, literally out from under the farmers that are currently beneficially using it, makes a mockery of the EFU protections for the farming and food production that characterizes the area currently and historically. As WRD has noted for years, the surface water and the ground water are connected throughout the basin, and both are completely appropriated (over-appropriated, in many respects), and thus water can not practically be "moved" from one place to another just by changing the paperwork in the WRD office. Not pumping water out of the aquifer miles away does not magically make more "available" at the desired point of use. Increasingly, climate change and development patterns are portending more droughts, and thus, the community should be looking for ways to conserve water, not waste it on water-skiing and golfing in the desert! Nunzie Gould's comments illuminate two other key problems with this proposal, and I support and join in all her objections to it. To me, these two problems (1) the lack of documentation of the ability to meet the Groundwater Mitigation Rules, and (2) the indications that the application's shell game essentially seeks to resurrect, expand, or enlarge existing and expired water rights permits, seem legally fatal flaws. For those reasons and all the others relating to the complete inconsistency with the public interest, I urge WRD to deny this transfer request and any others necessary to turn this community nightmare into a dystopian reality. Thank you for your consideration.
 Josie Christiansen Please do not give all these water right permits to large developers. We definitely don’t need water going to golf course care. The natural habitat needs to be maintained- without chemicals going into our streams from golf course runoff. It is detrimental to animals, fish and fowl and homesteaders already living in Central Oregon. Keep Oregon for its natural beauty and wildlife - that all can enjoy, not just for the privileged that come temporary to play golf.
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