Sprinklers water grass surrounding a pond filled with water from the Central Oregon Irrigation District at a Deschutes County property in July 2025. Byron Garth, the former property owner, bought the water rights in 2016, as he was building out the multi-million dollar estate that he sold last year.
Emily Cureton Cook / OPB
The Deschutes River is a lifeline for Central Oregon. About 90% of the river’s water is diverted to irrigation canals during the agricultural growing season. OPB’s Central Oregon Bureau Chief Emily Cureton Cook wanted to know where all that water went, and what it was used to grow.
Emily teamed up with journalists at ProPublica to zoom in on the Central Oregon Irrigation District, or COID. They did some deep data analysis to find some answers. But this is not a story about numbers. This is a story about people, specifically the people growing the food we eat from Oregon.
As we’ve talked about before, Oregon water rights rely on a system called “prior appropriation” or “first in time, first in right.” Basically, in a drought, the people who hold the oldest or “senior” water rights get top priority and junior water rights holders have to make do with less. In this episode, Emily shares her reporting to show us what that looks like on the ground during a time when climate change is making drought conditions more severe.
Listen to all episodes of “The Evergreen” podcast here.
