USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in Oregon has completed an environmental review for the Powder Valley Water Control District’s irrigation modernization project.
NRCS issued a Finding of No Significant Impact, making the project eligible for federal funding and allowing it to move toward final design and construction.
Plans call for replacing 3.3 miles of open ditch with pipeline, consolidating other ditches into a 3.4-mile pipeline and retiring 6.7 miles of unneeded ditches. Fish screening and passage improvements are also planned. The project is intended to reduce water losses, improve delivery reliability and address aging infrastructure while supporting farms, ranches, streams and fish during drought conditions.
