Ranchers say water deal will hurt family business

Today, Wadekamper monitors his family's 700-acre ranch from the driver's seat of a powerful, mud-speckled pickup, tracks water usage and matches fields to available irrigation. Next year, however, the way LGW Ranch runs could change when the City of Hermiston moves ahead on its recycled water project.

"When you get up in the morning and you look out and see what you've accomplished, there's a sense of pride," Wadekamper said Tuesday. "People compliment the property, and it makes you feel good, the kind of good that sticks with you. You think about it when you work, when you watch a sunset or you sit out on the porch. There are so many rewards to this that aren't easy to explain."

A big part of keeping the ranch running is monitoring water flow and usage on the property's fluctuating water supply.

For the past 19 years, LGW has received Class C water from the City of Hermiston's wastewaster treatment facility during the summer months - May 1 to Oct. 31 - and grown as the city has grown.

"We've developed the ranch to accommodate the growth of the city, and we've purchased additional land in order to accommodate that growth," Sheri Wadekamper said.

Water is pumped across the river - an LGW field is directly across from the wastewater treatment plant - and is then sent either directly to irrigation on that pipeline or to the ranch's pump station for use on other areas of the ranch.

In April, all that will change.

The City of Hermiston is in the process of transforming the city's current wastewater facility into a Recycled Water Plant, and as part of that long-term project, city officials have entered into an agreement to discharge recycled water to the West Extension Irrigation District.

"We received a letter in January that said the city was terminating the contract in April," Sheri Wadekamper said. "It's a prudent choice the city has made to go to Class A water, but we could use the water here the same way the (WEID) can. Without the water, we'll have to dry up 200 acres, and we've already let two long-term employees go in preparation for it."

Those lay-offs cut 1/3 of the ranch's staff. In addition to the three members of the Wadekamper family, LGW now only employes one person full time.

"It means no vacations, no days off," Lane Wadekamper said.

Monday night, the family attended a Hermiston City Council meeting to speak on a resolution to purchase a right-of-way across ranch property for the new West Extention Irrigation District pipeline.

"In order to get to the West Extension Irrigation District, they have to put a pipeline across four (irrigation) circles and two hay stackyards," Sheri said. "We don't know when they plan to put the pipeline in, so we don't know what the impact will be on the grazing animals, on the hay, on the irrigation. We just don't know what the impact will be."

If the city cannot reach a purchase agreement with the family, they can condemn the property and take it as eminent domain. But once the line is in place - at least 4 feet under the ground - the ranch will have access to the land above it, Brookshier said.

For the Wadekampers, the first reaction to the change is a slew of questions.

"If you're looking toward the future, why haven't you asked us any questions? No one has come to talk to me, and I deal with this every day," Lane Wadekamper said. "It doesn't seem like the city has a back-up plan if they can't dump where they want to when they want to. If they have to discharge into the river, especially in the summer, they're going to face fines. It would be so much easier for them to give us a contract for 10 years while they figure all this out."

Although LGW will continue to operate without the city discharge water, the Wadekampers said they continue to worry about possible misconceptions and variables in the city's plan.

"We're concerned that the path the city has chosen still has a lot of hurdles to cross, and we see them investing so much time and revenue in a project that has so many issues," Sheri said. "We've offered to continue to be a part of this. That's really all we want is water."