Irrigators seek to simplify Oregon’s ‘color of water’ oversight

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, January 18, 2026

Irrigators seek regulatory flexibility

Oregon irrigators want to lower the bureaucratic hurdles for distributing water from the Columbia River, arguing that increasing regulatory flexibility will boost aquifer recharge efforts.

In the upcoming legislative session, irrigation districts within the Mid-Columbia Water Commission will seek to simplify the role of state regulators in overseeing the “color of water” drawn from the river.

The “color of water” refers to the various hues assigned to 36 individual water rights within the three districts, which must be tracked separately by the Oregon Water Resources Department.

“The problem with that is that all of those water rights are commingled in one pipe, and the state’s trying to track those molecules individually and that pipe to individual fields,” said J.R. Cook, director of the Northeast Oregon Water Association, which represents irrigators and other in the region.

For the past decade, about $300 million has been invested in building three pipelines and associated infrastructure to pump water from the river to irrigators.

Irrigators within the Mid-Columbia Water Commission can withdraw the water from the river in exchange for reducing their water use “bucket-for-bucket” in upstream tributaries.

Separate colors representing those preserved upstream water rights continue to be tracked by OWRD as the equivalent amount of water is collectively drawn from the river into the irrigation pipelines.

Proposed bill

Under a bill proposed by the association, the Mid-Columbia Water Commission would control how those “colors of water” move through the irrigation system, which serves about 350,000 acres, without obtaining regulatory approval from OWRD for each transfer.

The commission also would be able to shift among different points of diversion along a 50-mile stretch of the river without having to go through the formal regulatory process for each transaction.

However, the OWRD would retain jurisdiction over the total amount of water that’s taken out of the river, which wouldn’t increase under the bill, and ensure it isn’t impermissibly spread over additional acreage.

“The change there is really pretty simple. It’s to focus the Water Resources Department on the river diversions to ensure that we’re in full compliance with all of the water rights that are conglomerated together,” said David Filippi, an attorney involved in the proposal. “At that point, it leaves it to the local government to ensure that the water rates are being complied with and water is being delivered in accordance with the water rights.”

During peak water flows in the river, the pipelines used by the three districts in the Mid-Columbia Water District withdraw about 1,400 cubic feet per second out of about 520,000 cubic feet per second.

With the use of telemetry devices that monitor water flow, officials from OWRD can ensure that only the authorized amounts are withdrawn from the river, supporters said during a recent legislative hearing.

“The state can actually sit at their table and look at a computer and see any time what we’re pulling out of the river and that we’re complying” with regulations, Cook said.

The bill proposed for the 2026 legislative session is necessary because existing laws can’t accommodate such a comprehensive method for managing the water in real time, as transfers are approved by OWRD on an annual basis, according to supporters.

“There’s no modernized infrastructure agreement around that system to be able to be able to optimize that system long term to serve the needs and solve problems,” Cook said.

If the legislation is passed, it will improve water conservation and aquifer recharge measures because water will be easier to shift from irrigators don’t need it to those who do, reducing their reliance on groundwater pumping, he said.

Cook later told Capital Press he does expect objections to be raised against the proposal, as any changes to water law are bound to cause anxiety.

However, Cook said he’s confident the bill would improve efficiencies in managing water without any potential ill effects.

“We don’t believe there’s any bad with this, it could only be good,” he said.