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DateNameCompanyComment
05/29/2025Karyn HansonChehalem Mountain Water CouncilI am concerned about this application for a few reasons. In a report prepared by Ben Scandella for the Yamhill County Water Task Force in August of 2021 an adjacent well YAMH 56904 was showing significant declines. The hydrograph available in the groundwater information data available to the public shows a high in 2017 of 268 feet BGS and a low in March of 2020 of 320 feet BGS. That is 52 feet total. While there was a drought there also was a new vineyard being irrigated. Does this represent drought or over watering of a new vineyard. Maybe it is both. I am also concerned about a lack of consistency between current groundwater permits for irrigating vineyards on Chehalem Mountain. Permit LL 1966 was approved for irrigating grapes this year. This permit approved 0.5 Acre-Feet for 4.5 acres of grapes. This is a lot less than an Acre Foot per acre. Finding 10 of the permit approval stated, "In this location, grape vines do not necessarily require continuing irrigation after establishment. This limited license is issued to establish grapes vines. The Department may issue a limited license for irrigation if the sole purpose of the use is to provide water necessary to establish a crop for which no further irrigation will be required after the crop is established. ORS 537.143 (6)(a)." I believe a similar statement would be appropriate for this permit. Additionally, in Permit S-88918 irrigation of a vineyard was allowed providing 3.8 acre feet fro 100 acres of grapes. This is also a lot less than an acre foot per acre. It doesn't appear that a Vineyard requires an acre foot per acres based on those two previous requests. We also have a local expert on vineyard irrigation who has provided us with a statement for comments: "WINE GRAPES & IRRIGATION Other than for purposes of establishing a new vineyard, wine grapes simply do not need water beyond the annual precipitation in the areas that they are growing. Viable vines grow in areas with as little as 10” of rain per year…on the island of Santorini, grape wines have been growingon volcanic pumace for 1000s of years without any additional watering beyond their annualrainfall of 10-15”. Vitis vinifera has the ability to throw its roots extremely deep in search of water and therefore once established they gain ample moisture and nutrition from depth. In Oregon’s Willamette Valley rainfall averages over 30” per year and though the summers see relatively little rainfall, vineyards survive quite well without irrigation.That the quality of wines made from dry farmed vines far surpass those made from irrigated vines is not in question; one need only do a survey of the most successful wines produced in the state of Oregon to see a list of which vineyards are dry farmed. Virtually all vineyards in Europe are non-irrigated and only those producing the cheapest wines are irrigated (for example the Midi of France). Irrigation for grape vines was “invented” in the late 1970’s in California in order to get vines into production ‘more quickly and to increase grape production along the way. The result has been devastating for the California wine industry: average alcohols have soared, irrigated vineyards only live for 15-20 years before needing to be ripped out and the quality of the wines have suffered. Other than the short term gain of getting vines into production sooner, there is no up-side to irrigating grape vines. And after nearly 50 years of irrigation in the Napa Valley, the Napa River and its tributaries are drying up and the water table is sinking so that available water for simply carrying on life is at risk." John Paul, Founder, Deep Roots Coalition I am also concerned because the ground water findings reference Chicken Creek but do not reference Little Hell's Canyon Creek. There is a current application R-89878 which has proposed approval on a storage reservoir at the headwaters of this creek. I have submitted a surface water runoff analysis that shows that applicant is asking to store ALL of the run off flowing to that Creek from November through June. That application is not approved yet. There are several domestic wells adjacent to the creek and several more nearby. The outcome of this storage application should be considered in approving this application to irrigate a vineyard. Thank you for the opportunity to comment.