Oregon farmers dependent on water for irrigation started out the season with a bleak outlook. A few months in, conditions haven’t changed much.

Farmers are already getting less water. Some Central Oregon fields have had their water curtailed for the first time ever. In Southern Oregon growers are being paid to leave fields fallow. And in some places, water regulators will likely have to shut off the tap before the growing season ends.

River stream flows are well below normal for this time of year across most of Oregon’s basins.

Underpinning this is an ongoing drought. As much as 86% of Oregon is in some form of drought right now, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. And as of early July, 19 out of Oregon’s 36 counties are under drought emergency — with two more pending the governor’s approval.

“Pretty much statewide, conditions are not looking good,” said Cameron Greenwood, a hydrologist at the Oregon Water Resources Department. “And a lot of that can be attributed to the well below normal snowpack that we saw this winter.”

Oregon farmers, water managers stare at a bleak summer as irrigation season begins

Snow in the mountains acts as a natural water reservoir, but Oregon got a meager amount of snow this past winter. The state also saw some of the warmest winter months in recorded Oregon history. In some parts of the Cascades, the little snow that did manage to stick is melting weeks earlier than usual.

“A large part of the state relies on that natural reservoir to sustain stream flows,” Greenwood said. “And since we didn’t get it, we’re already seeing really record-low stream flow conditions across much of the state.”

That means less water available for growers who depend on a slow and steady stream of snowmelt to make its way to the farms and ranches that blanket the state.

In Central Oregon, for instance, the North Unit Irrigation District began pulling water from the Deschutes River system on April 13. In a good year, the natural flow of the river can meet the demands of all the irrigation districts in the region until early June.

The North Unit district has had to rely almost entirely on water from the Wickiup Reservoir this year to offset the low stream flow from the river, according to reporting from the Bend Bulletin.

That reservoir has already fallen from 93% full at the beginning of the season in April to 46% by early July.

The reservoir is expected to be much lower by fall, said Karin Bumbaco, the deputy state climatologist for the Washington State Climate Office, at a June Pacific Northwest Drought and Climate Outlook press briefing.

At least one other reservoir in Central Oregon, Crescent Lake, is on track to end the season at its lowest level since the 1990s, with water deliveries to farms that depend on its water for irrigation set to stop by mid-August, according to Bumbaco.

She added some irrigation districts in that region have already curtailed junior water rights between Bend and Redmond for what local water managers believe is the first time ever.

Oregon water law is based on “prior appropriation.” That means irrigators with the oldest water rights take priority over junior water right holders if there’s not enough water for everyone.

Elsewhere in Southern Oregon, the Klamath Project Drought Response Agency set aside $19 million to pay farmers to leave the fields fallow to reduce the risk of water shortages. Water managers in that region said at least up to 50,000 acres had to be left idle to conserve water.

As far as the long-term outlook for the rest of the summer, it’s not looking good, Greenwood said.

“The U.S. Drought Monitor released their seasonal outlook, which indicates that the entire state is either going to see drought develop or persist,” he said. “So come September, we’re likely going to be in a pretty rough spot with respect to water resources.”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/07/05/oregon-agriculture-farmers-water-drought/