Horsefly Irrigation District’s Piping Projects said yes. They said, “Okay, thanks. That’ll help.” When I met them the next week at the office, I walked into an interview. They wound up hiring me as the assistant manager. That was a few years ago. Now, I’ve been the manager for almost 2 years. That started a new journey for me. Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about HID.
A section of HID’s canal being converted into pipe.
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he Horsefly Irrigation District (HID) in arid eastern Oregon provides water to 11,600 irrigated acres. To address limited supplies and evaporation, it has started piping its 25 miles of canals. In this interview, HID Manager Justin Eary tells us more about the district’s current projects. Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.
14 | IRRIGATION LEADER | October 2021
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PHOTOS COURTESY OF HID.
Justin Eary: I grew up around agriculture and have a background in irrigation, equipment operation, and maintenance. My grandpa had a dairy farm and a hay farm. I irrigated for my grandfather on his farm and worked for a couple of large ranches. At one point, I flood irrigated about 1,000 acres by myself. At one point, I was working for myself as a contractor, and one of the HID board members whom I knew approached me and said, “Irrigation season is coming up, and we’re way behind in converting a canal to a pipeline. Could you help us out?” I said that I could make time to come in the following week. Then they called me back and asked, “You know how to run an excavator and a bulldozer and you can weld, right?” I
Justin Eary: HID was officially started in 1911, although it was running as early as 1906. We have a 1905 water right. The district boundaries enclose almost 22,000 acres, of which 10,200 are irrigated with our water right. Another 1,400 acres are related to what we call the Bowne water right. Francis Bowne was the landowner who built the first phase of our original dam on the Lost River. The Bowne water right dates back to 1902, predating HID’s. Including the Bowne right, we irrigate a total of 11,600 acres. Our operations staff consists of two ditch riders, the secretary, and me. HID has about 25 miles of canals. All its water is pumped out of the Lost River. We lift all the water out of the Lost River onto various hills, and then it enters into a gravity-fed canal system. We have four coffer-style dams on the Lost River. We use those to impound water and maintain the two different elevations of the upper and lower pools. In downtown Bonanza, Oregon, right on the edge of the Lost River, is the Bonanza Big Springs Park. There are over 150 springs in the park. We have to maintain those water levels to provide safe drinking water for the town of Bonanza, which does not have a municipal water system. Each house has its own domestic well, and all the wells are tied directly to the springs. The springs slow down every year during the summertime and risk being contaminated by the Lost River. HID works closely with the town to regulate the water level in the river and the springs to maintain a safe distance so that the springs flow clear and there is no risk of reverse flow or the contamination of wells. We also have a water right on the springs; we can use any of the flows from those springs as part of our water right. Our location on the east side of the Klamath basin is pretty arid. Today, with changing weather patterns and environmental regulations, we don’t have the water that we used to have. Some students from the Oregon Institute of Technology did some studies for us two summers ago and found that we’re losing 40 percent of our water to evaporation and subbing. Our water right is for 2 acre-feet of water per acre of land, but to deliver those 2 acre-feet to a customer, we would have to pump 314 just because of transmission loss. Most of the Klamath basin gets its water from Upper Klamath Lake, but we don’t. HID and our neighboring district, Langell Valley Irrigation District (LVID), get our water from Clearlake and Gerber Reservoirs, which are basically between Klamath Falls and Lakeview. Those two
