The City of Bend seems intent on owning hydropower facilities regardless of the cost to taxpayers or community sustainability. Initially, the now controversial surface water project, was designed primarily as a hydropower facility. Plans are still on the books to pursue that option but are forestalled thanks to diligent public opposition. Now momentum is building to purchase the dam at Mirror Pond in the hope that scenic benefits from maintaining the iconic impoundment we know as Mirror Pond would outweigh the outrageous cost.
First, let us examine the accuracy of the name Mirror Pond. Lakes and ponds are natural features formed by glaciers, sedimentation or other geologic forces over time. Ponds behave in a specific way and maintain biological systems that, left alone, tend to form self-sustaining microenvironments. Reservoirs and impoundments like the one in downtown Bend behave much differently.
One need only look to the sediment problems plaguing Mirror Pond over the past several decades to see an obvious problem with the backwaters of a dam. Sediment continually settles upstream from any barrier to flow, and as dams age, the impoundments upstream become progressively shallower until eventually they fill in completely.
Mirror Pond and Drake Park are certainly beautiful features of our downtown area and should be maintained for the good of our community, an endeavor for which there is overwhelming public support. What is less clear is what the area will look like without the old hydropower dam.
Thanks to some excellent work by the Mirror Pond Coalition, we have reasonably accurate renderings of the pond under various management scenarios. With appropriate landscaping around the banks of the Deschutes, as everyone pretty much agrees would be needed, most management scenarios look similar to what we would see either with or without the dam.
Recent decreased flows, which caused de-watering of the entire stretch of river through town are caused not by the leak in the PacifiCorp dam, but by upstream water diversions undertaken to make the least possible stream flow through Mirror Pond so that the dam leak could be properly evaluated.
A key point is that the Mirror Pond hydro-impoundment only extends to the Galveston Bridge crossing. Nothing Bend chooses to do with the dam will affect tubing, paddling, recreation, or will substantially alter the appearance of Drake Park, at least after water levels are allowed to return to normal and some landscaping takes place.
No significant scenic impact would occur either. In fact, a more free flowing Deschutes could greatly enhance the length of river for almost every use from floating to paddling to natural resource sustainability. The beautification question would only really involve allowing a few more feet of grass in Drake Park and the relatively short time required for dam removal. A more important question is how do we get there without bankrupting the taxpayers of Bend.
The Bend City Council is already on record that we have no more discretionary funding to purchase much less maintain a hydropower facility. Continual periodic dredging of the pond should the dam remain, would add even more zeros to the price tag. Instead, the expense would be passed along to taxpayers as bonds or new taxes. This could be ruinous to Bend.
We should be encouraging our elected officials to do whatever is possible to assist PacifiCorp with dam removal and rehabilitation of the Mirror Pond stretch once the impoundment is gone.
PacifiCorp is currently obligated to do what is necessary to ensure safe decommissioning of the facility now that it is beyond its useful life and no longer profitable. Understandably, they would like to unload the potential costs onto someone else. We should make sure that it is not Bend taxpayers.
Instead, working with the current dam owners, the City of Bend could help offset some costs of removal and landscaping, allowing the beauty of Mirror Pond and Drake Park to remain while costing both PacifiCorp and Bend taxpayers the least amount possible for the most benefit to both parties.
Nathan K. Boddie, M.D., M.S.52 NW McKay AvenueBend, OR 97701
nkboddie@mindspring.com 917-734-7208
