Author, historian Steve Lent speaks to Three Sisters Historical Society on development of irrigation in C.O.

SISTERS, Ore. (KTVZ) – On Monday evening, the Three Sisters Historical Society hosted author and historian Steve Lent, who shared his stories and photos of Central Oregon’s water usage and irrigation -- then and now.

Lent told his audience: “Most of all of the dams that were built were mostly for water storage and irrigation. And for 100 hundred years or more, that was not much of an issue, until we started getting a lot of different conflicting issues in Central Oregon, such as the population, fisheries, spotted frog, and then also the climate change and drought, which is limiting the amount of water we never thought we'd run out of water -- but we are running out of water.”

Historically, Lent believes, water changed the landscape of Central Oregon significantly.

Originally, High Desert farms were mostly limited to crops based on dry land like winter, wheat, rye and oats. Once water irrigation came, farmers were able to cultivate potatoes. Now, water irrigation is used to produce hay crops and seed crops for selling seeds.

Today, farmers have to compete for water against the influx of people moving to Central Oregon.

Lent said there's just not enough water to go around.

On the other side, water conservationists depend on programs like Deschutes River Conservancy's In-Stream Leasing Program, which was recently awarded a share of over $140 million in state funding, to go toward irrigation districts, water for farms and water to replenish the Deschutes River.  Not only is Lent a historian, but he's written several books on canals, dams and the issues that we face with our irrigation system.