Spring 2025

To conserve, protect, and develop natural resources for the environmental and economic benefit of Umatilla County.

District Activities Overview

With spring coming to a close, it’s time to share  updates on the various projects the SWCD has been working on. First and foremost, we started an additional SIA (Strategic Implementation Area; for more information, click here) in the Ukiah, Oregon area. This will make our fifth SIA in Umatilla County, and the one we are most excited about thus far. We anticipate a lot of good work in the next five or so years in the southern end of Umatilla County, where we historically have not spent a lot of time and resources since it is in the John Day basin and not the Umatilla Basin. With the funding provided by the SIA program, we are happy to begin changing that! SIA V: Camas Creek joins our current SIA III and IV project (East Birch and Couse Creek) where we have been implementing projects, collecting monitoring data, and working hard to show the good work that agriculture is doing for our watersheds and our landscapes. We are looking to fund projects like the following: 

• Fencing
• Pond conversion to troughs 
• Spring development to troughs
• Annual grass treatment and reseedings
• Riparian planting (with the appropriate hog panel cages for protection against elk and deer)
• Virtual fence
• Fire recovery and restoration (fence, water developments that were damage, reseeding)
• Post Assisted Log Structures (PDL)/Beaver Dam Analog (BDA) structures to raise the water table and prevent downcutting (greening up pastures longer, providing beaver benefit without the beaver). Learn more about these structures from this article
• Other additional projects that improve water quality

If you'd like to learn more about virtual fencing in particular, the Baker City Herald covered one of Umatilla SWCD's virtual fence projects in a recent story.

Read the article here

Additionally, we were very thankful to not have a rain-heavy spring, and flooding damage was kept to a minimum this year. We are pleased we were able to quickly and efficiently assist the few landowners who did need assistance, including helping one landowner receive an emergency permit notification within 24 hours. Success like this is due to the last five years of relationship building, technical assistance, and dogged determination to get solutions for folks who live alongside our streams and rivers. Though there is a mountain of work still to be done, we are thrilled to see successes start to unfold. Find out more information on the flooding restoration and mitigation projects in Umatilla County on our website here.

This spring we also kicked-off the Water Control District Collaborative, aiming to combine, unify, and focus all of the Water Control District's resources in Umatilla County to achieve countywide success across the board. We look forward to defining a structure and developing a roadmap for success in this inaugural year.

Finally - thank you for your continued support and work in Umatilla County. Agriculture and conservation will continue to be an extremely important issue as we figure out how to feed more of the world with less resources. Thank you for your part in the endeavor.

As always, feel free to reach out with questions or comments - many thanks!

- Kyle Waggoner, District Manager

 Grant Applications

Current Projects (Implementing)