The Deschutes River in central Oregon is a major tributary of the Columbia River. The river provides much of the drainage on the eastern side of the Cascade Range in Oregon, gathering many of the tributaries that descend from the drier, eastern flank of the mountains. The Deschutes provided an important route to and from the Columbia for Native Americans for thousands of years, and then in the 19th century for pioneers on the Oregon Trail. The river flows mostly through rugged and arid country, and its valley provides a cultural heart for central Oregon. Today the river supplies water for irrigation and is popular in the summer for whitewater rafting and fishing.
Portland General Electric (PGE) is a Fortune 1000 public utility based in Portland, Oregon. It distributes electricity to customers in parts of Multnomah, Clackamas, Marion, Yamhill, Washington, and Polk counties - 44% of the inhabitants of Oregon. Founded in 1888 as the Willamette Falls Electric Company, the company has been an independent company for most of its existence, though was briefly owned by the Houston-based Enron Corporation from 1997 until 2006 when Enron divested itself of PGE during its bankruptcy.
New Bullards Bar Dam is a variable radius concrete arch dam constructed in the early 1960s in California on the North Yuba River. Located near the town of Dobbins in Yuba County, the dam forms the New Bullards Bar Reservoir, which can hold about 969,600 acre⋅ft (1.1960×109 m3) of water. The dam serves for irrigation, drinking water and hydroelectric power generation.
The Klamath Project is a water-management project developed by the United States Bureau of Reclamation to supply farmers with irrigation water and farmland in the Klamath Basin. The project also supplies water to the Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge, and the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge. The project was one of the first to be developed by the Reclamation Service, which later became the Bureau of Reclamation.
The Bull Run Hydroelectric Project was a Portland General Electric (PGE) development in the Sandy River basin in the U.S. state of Oregon. Originally built between 1908 and 1912 near the town of Bull Run, it supplied hydroelectric power for the Portland area for nearly a century, until it was removed in 2007 and 2008. The project used a system of canals, tunnels, wood box flumes and diversion dams to feed a remote storage reservoir and powerhouse. The entire project was removed because of rising environmental costs. Marmot Dam on the Sandy River was demolished in 2007, and the Little Sandy Dam on the Little Sandy River was taken down in 2008.
The Bull Run River is a 21.9-mile (35.2 km) tributary of the Sandy River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Beginning at the lower end of Bull Run Lake in the Cascade Range, it flows generally west through the Bull Run Watershed Management Unit (BRWMU), a restricted area meant to protect the river and its tributaries from contamination. The river, impounded by two artificial storage reservoirs as well as the lake, is the primary source of drinking water for the city of Portland, Oregon.
Central Oregon is a geographic region in the U.S. state of Oregon and is traditionally considered to be made up of Deschutes, Jefferson, and Crook counties. Other definitions include larger areas, often encompassing areas to the north towards the Columbia River, eastward towards Burns, or south towards Klamath Falls. These three counties have a combined population of 200,431 as of the 2010 census, with Deschutes the largest of the three counties, having approximately four times the population of the other two counties combined. As of 2015, the most populous city in the region is Bend, with an estimated 87,014 residents. As defined by the three county definition, Central Oregon covers 7,833 square miles (20,290 km2) of land. Central Oregon has had 3 record tourism years beginning in 2012. Over 2.2 million people visited Central Oregon in 2012 and again in 2013.
Lava Butte is a cinder cone in central Oregon, United States, just west of U.S. Route 97 between the towns of Bend, and Sunriver in Deschutes County. It is part of a system of small cinder cones on the northwest flank of Newberry Volcano, a massive shield volcano which rises to the southeast. The cinder cone is capped by a crater which extends about 60 feet (20 m) deep beneath its south rim, and 160 feet (50 m) deep from the 5,020-foot (1,530 m) summit on its north side. Lava Butte is part of the Newberry National Volcanic Monument.
The Cove Palisades State Park is a state park in eastern Jefferson County, Oregon, near Culver and Madras in the central part of the state, and is administered by the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department. It is located on the waters and surrounding lands of Lake Billy Chinook, an impoundment of the Crooked, Deschutes, and Metolius rivers.
The Crooked River is a tributary, 125 miles (201 km) long, of the Deschutes River in the U.S. state of Oregon. The river begins at the confluence of the South Fork Crooked River and Beaver Creek. Of the two tributaries, the South Fork Crooked River is the larger and is sometimes considered part of the Crooked River proper. A variant name of the South Fork Crooked River is simply "Crooked River". The Deschutes River flows north into the Columbia River.
The Oak Grove Hydroelectric Project is a 44 megawatt hydroelectric plant operated by Portland General Electric (PGE) on the Oak Grove Fork Clackamas River. Water for this project is held by three lakes, built between 1923 and 1956. The dam creates the impoundment Lake Harriet.
Oak Grove Fork Clackamas River is a 21-mile (34 km) tributary of the Clackamas River in the U.S. state of Oregon. From its headwaters in the Warm Springs Indian Reservation near Abbot Pass in the Cascade Range, the river flows generally west through Mount Hood National Forest in Clackamas County to the unincorporated community of Ripplebrook. Here it enters the main stem of the Clackamas River. Oak Grove Fork feeds Timothy Lake and Lake Harriet, two artificial impoundments built along its course to control water flows to hydroelectric plants.
Round Butte Dam is a rockfill-type hydroelectric dam on the Deschutes River, in the U.S. state of Oregon.
Willow Creek is a tributary, about 26 miles (42 km) long, of the Deschutes River in central Oregon in the United States. Arising near Foley Butte in the western Ochoco Mountains in Crook County, it flows generally northwest into Jefferson County and through the Crooked River National Grassland. The creek continues through the city of Madras and becomes the dividing line between two plateaus, Agency Plains and Little Agency Plains. It then enters the Deschutes above Pelton Dam and its impoundment, Lake Simtustus, about 105 miles (169 km) from the river's confluence with the Columbia River.
The Little Sandy River is a tributary, roughly 15 miles (24 km) long, of the Bull Run River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Forming west of Mount Hood in the Mount Hood National Forest, it flows generally west, roughly parallel to the Sandy River to the south. Its entire course lies in Clackamas County, and most of its main stem and tributaries are within the Bull Run Watershed Management Unit (BRWMU), a restricted zone that protects Portland's main water supply.
Central Oregon Irrigation District is a municipal corporation to provide irrigation water for Central Oregon, U.S. The canals serve agricultural and industrial users in the arid lands between Alfalfa, Bend, Redmond, Terrebonne, and Powell Butte. Among its 4,000 or so individual customer accounts, it also provides municipal water to the city of Redmond, neighboring subdivisions, and parks and schools in Bend. The district manages more than 700 miles (1,100 km) of canals serving about 70.3 square miles (182 km2) of lands within a rough area of 280 square miles (730 km2).
Mirror Pond is an impoundment of the Deschutes River in Bend, in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is between Pacific Power's Bend Hydro dam and the Colorado dam, between RM 166 and 167. The pond is flanked by Drake, Harmon, Pageant, Brooks, Columbia, Miller's Landing, and McKay parks, as well as a number of buildings such as Pine Tavern and private homes. Some people mistakenly consider the Galveston (Tumalo) bridge the upper boundary of Mirror Pond; others call the portion of the lake between Galveston bridge and the Colorado dam "upper Mirror Pond".
The Upper North Fork Feather River Project is a hydroelectric scheme in the Sierra Nevada of California, within Lassen and Plumas Counties. The project consists of three dams, five power plants, and multiple conduits and tunnels in the headwaters of the North Fork Feather River, a major tributary of the Feather—Sacramento River systems. The total installed capacity is 362.3 megawatts (MW), producing an annual average of 1,171.9 gigawatt hours (GWh). The project is also contracted for the delivery of irrigation water between March 31 and October 31 of each year. The project is owned and operated by Pacific Gas and Electric Company.
The Swalley Irrigation District supplies water to irrigators through a network of pipes and canals fed by the Deschutes River near Bend in the U.S. state of Oregon. The network, begun in 1899, is a closed system with an intake behind North Canal Dam in Bend and a main canal, the Swalley Canal, that runs north from the city for about 13 miles (21 km). The only covered bridge east of the Cascade Range in Oregon crosses the Swalley Canal.
