Updates on the Billadeau-Ropp Private Lateral
UPDATE 7/10/25:
The patrons have just received communication from AID that Colin Wills, the director, will be leaving towards the end of the month. I have asked Juanita and Ashley to please release the June 10th board meeting minutes. The May minutes are available here and do contain some additional insight into what happened with the piping delay. I do recommend reading through them to say updated on AID management. I have also emailed our representative board member, Rob Rastovich, to try to find some time to fill him in so that the needs of our lateral can be conveyed to the management of the district.
In the meantime, per the communication, additional water rights are available for purchase. If you are looking towards purchasing additional water rights, once again please be aware that re-engineering all upstream weir boxes and plates is the patron’s financial responsibility. AID should convey that information as well. If you do plan to do this, please let us know via the contact form on the website or email, so that we can stay up to date for the purposes of grant writing.
Finally, the board will be having another meeting the first week of August. We will plan to send representatives from our lateral. However, these meetings are open to the public and anyone can attend. As always, if you have any questions, concerns, feedback, ideas, etc - please do not hesitate to email or contact via website.
Thanks all, Liz
Update 7/1/25:
A big Thanks!!!!, to those of you who added detail to changes that have occurred to your property’s irrigation systems over the years. It is very helpful and much appreciated.
I wanted to update everyone on our group’s legal status, and some pertinent legislative updates.
When we first started this project, AID encouraged us to form a legal entity like a mutual-members nonprofit or a special district. Grant opportunities seemed to clearly require a legal status/TIN. However, based on current information and many, many conversations with various nonprofit and government groups, it seems more likely that we could have other organizations apply for grants on our behalf. For the Lundy lateral example (an AID private lateral off Brookswood), the Deschutes River Conservancy was able to do some of the identification of grants and grant-writing for the patrons. I cannot find any evidence that the Lundy lateral patrons formed a legal entity of any kind. For this reason, I am going to pause efforts to create a legal entity in hopes that our group can parallel the progress of the Lundy lateral. If anyone objects to this or predicts issues, please do let me know! It certainly isn’t my wheelhouse but I don’t want to put precious energy where it isn’t directly serving our goals.
I have created a new legislative section on the front page of our website that updates everyone on important legislative matters. Here’s a brief summary of the important ones:
SB83 finally passed. This was the repeal of the Oregon Wildfire Hazard map, which many people (myself included) felt was misguided and problematic. Thankfully, SB83 does not remove the many positive aspects of SB762, which included other provisions to prevent fire such as the use of remote cameras on mountains etc. SB83 is on the Governor’s desk awaiting her signature, having already passed almost unanimously through the OR house and senate.
SB3806 also passed. This bill allows for the creation of a “water bank” in the Deschutes river basin to allow for easier water transfer. Effectively, it should make it easier for landowners to send water to other landowners or back to the river without giving up water rights. Getting rid of a lot of the red tape of such transfers should hopefully come as a welcome change. This is a great article that helps to explain this bill: https://bendbulletin.com/2025/05/28/bill-in-oregon-legislature-offers-hope-for-improved-water-distribution-in-deschutes-basin/
UPDATE and REQUEST 6/30/25:
Todd Peplin called me with the great news that he was able to speak with the engineer (Grant Hargrave) that did the initial plan and then multiple re-engineering plans for our lateral. (Todd forwarded me all of those PDFs and DWGs if anyone is interested but I’m going to keep them off the interwebs for now).
This is the history of the engineering that they did:
HWA job # Description
950824 Original design
030425 Shaver update
041007 Macleod update
060518 Ipock update
070615 Wodtli update
Todd is going to proceed with having one of their engineers look over the previous plans. We will then have a meeting for our lateral towards the end of July/mid August to discuss the next survey for the lateral and the next steps.
Here is the request: If you purchased additional water rights and used a different engineering company to reconfigure the weir box/plates upstream, please contact me through the contact form on this website. We are aware that additional water rights were purchased on this lateral after 2010, but to our knowledge (and Arnold’s), the required upstream professional re-engineering was never done. We are hoping that we just don’t have visibility to it. If that is the case, it will be important for the new engineer to be able to see those plans.
As predicted, this is a slow process. We appreciate everyone’s patience and understanding and transparency as we reassess our lateral and determine the best ways to conserve water in order to ensure everyone gets the amount for which they are billed.
REQUEST 6/13/25: AID is still giving our lateral 101.1 acres of water, which is over our allotment of 89 acres of water. However, some patrons on the Ropp part of the lateral have noticed a distinct decrease in flow over the last week. Please check your ditches and weir boxes to make sure they are not blocked with debris. Feel free to get in touch with us if you need help clearing the ditch. Thank you!
NOTICE 6/6/25:
8:08 am: Update on meeting and walk with Todd Peplin of the Deschutes Soil and Water Conservation District (https://www.deschutesswcd.org/deschutes-swcd-staff/). Todd and Peter walked the lateral, starting at the head gate. Todd identified several areas of severe water waste/leakage (we knew it was bad, and he corroborated that). He mapped the lateral with GPS and is taking it back to his organization and related organizations to see if we qualify for application to the grant program to modernize the lateral. Within the next month or two, we should be having a meeting of patrons on the lateral with Todd and Colin to discuss options.
A quick note: We are aware that some of you have spent significant amounts of money updating the irrigation infrastructure on your property and are concerned about potential plans not taking into consideration the work that has been done. If this is you, please contact us if you haven’t already (you can use the contact form on this website or respond to Peter’s emails). We would like to hear about what you’ve done so we can keep it in mind for planning as we move forward.
As always, transparency and collaboration is our goal. There is a solution for everything, but knowing about these concerns in advance will be key.
Warmly,
Liz
NOTICE 6/4/25:
9:25 am: Update from AID
8:30 am: AID to send update in the next 15 min. From Juanita at AID: “The problem was with the butterfly valve at the outlet of the main canal pipe at Horse Butte Rd. The butterfly valve closed and the water couldn’t run through to the Sundance and the Brandon lateral (where you receive your water through). The water stayed in the system and flooded out areas to the west of the piped area.”
8:08 am: From Juanita at AID: “We just received notice from the crew that there has been a breach in the main canal. I don’t have any further details but as soon as we have more information, we will send out an update from the office as soon as the manager informs us what the problem is and what the solution is and how long it will take.”
7:51 am: We are aware there is currently no irrigation water. This is true West of us as well (at least to Larsen). The district has been notified, and we currently do not know what is causing this, however it is not specific to our private lateral. We will keep this page updated with whatever we learn.
NOTICE 5/30/25:
On June 5th 2025 at 3 pm, Peter Schrey will be walking the lateral with Todd Peplin. This is an early step in a grant application for possible engineering assistance with lateral modernization. Please be aware you may see them on your property as they inspect the ditch.
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