--- title: six miles of mckay creek still go dry canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/mckay-creek-still-goes-dry markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/mckay-creek-still-goes-dry.md subtitle: the meadow is restored. the wells are in. the creek is the piece still ahead. category: ecosystem-services --- # six miles of mckay creek still go dry *the meadow is restored. the wells are in. the creek is the piece still ahead.* If you searched for McKay Creek, Oregon, there is a fair chance you landed on the wrong creek. There are two. One backs up behind McKay Dam near Pendleton and belongs to the Umatilla. The other comes down out of the Ochoco Mountains through ranch bottomland in Crook County and meets the Crooked River at Prineville. This post is about the second one. In April it sounds like a creek. Snowmelt off the Ochocos pushes through willow and cottonwood along McKay Creek Road, and the water is cold enough to hurt. By late summer, about six miles of it are gravel. The water is still in the valley. It is in the ditches. That dry reach is the third of three living things in the Crooked River's recent story, A wet meadow in the national forest was repaired in 2019. A set of aquifer wells under Prineville has been injecting winter water since 2021. The creek is the reach the exchange has not finished. ## two mckay creeks, one of them here The **McKay Creek** in this post is a tributary of the Crooked River in the Lower Crooked subbasin (HUC 17070305), inside the Deschutes basin, in Crook County, Oregon. It is not the McKay Creek that feeds McKay Reservoir on the Umatilla, a Bureau of Reclamation storage project near Pendleton, in a different river system. The distinction matters beyond geography. The Crooked River McKay is named in the 2013 federal rule that set up a reintroduced steelhead population above Round Butte Dam. Pelton Round Butte is co-owned by Portland General Electric and the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. They are downstream sovereigns. This series does not invoice them. That rule lists the Crooked River from the Deschutes confluence up to Bowman Dam and its accessible tributaries, including the Ochoco Creek and McKay Creek watersheds. The 2013 federal rule that set up the reintroduction named this creek. That designation had a 12-year term, and whether it was extended past the sunset has not been re-checked, so this post does not treat the rule as a current listing. For about six miles of the year, in the months that count, there is no creek to come back up. ## what "goes dry" means on this creek Oregon runs on prior appropriation. Whoever put water to use first holds the senior right, and in a dry year the junior rights go without. On McKay Creek, the rights that matter are irrigation rights held by the ranches along the creek. In the irrigation season those rights are exercised, the diversions take the flow, and a reach of roughly six miles that would otherwise carry snowmelt into the Crooked carries almost none. This is not a story about a villain. The irrigators are using water they have a legal right to, on land their families have worked for generations, and they are also the people who make the fix possible. A creek that is a bed of warm stones in August is simply not a creek to a steelhead. The fish needs cold, connected water in the right months, from the forest down to the river. That is the whole problem, and you can see it from the creek road. ## the exchange: same water, different pipe The fix on the table is a **water-rights exchange**. Ochoco Irrigation District holds storage in Prineville Reservoir behind Bowman Dam. Under the exchange, McKay Creek irrigators would take stored reservoir water instead, delivered by a new pipeline and pump, and their creek rights would be transferred instream under Oregon law. The ranches keep irrigating. The creek keeps its water. LimnoTech's volumetric water benefits report for Meta, issued in August 2025, lists this project as anticipated, not complete. It puts the expected benefit at about 35 million gallons a year and names steelhead as the reason. It also lists 2026 as the first year it expected to count that water. None of it is in the 2024 count. The report's appendix names the Deschutes River Conservancy and the Deschutes Land Trust as partners on the exchange. Ochoco Irrigation District is the counterparty, and it is a serious one: about 20,062 acres and 898 irrigators, operating both Ochoco Reservoir and Prineville Reservoir. The district is the party that makes six miles of creek possible by moving its patrons onto stored water. Hold two versions of this project at once. One is an appendix row that says 35 million gallons. The other is a creek that runs through town in August with fish in it. The row is how the money gets counted. The creek is the thing. ## the meadow that was already fixed Up in the Ochoco National Forest, on Auger Creek, there is a wet meadow called **Ingram Meadow**. It is roughly 15 acres. For years the channel through it had cut down and was draining the meadow like a bathtub with the plug pulled, carrying snowmelt out in spring that used to soak in and release slowly through summer. In 2019 a plug-and-pond restoration filled the incised channel and let the water spread back across the meadow. LimnoTech counts about 1.5 million gallons a year of storage from that work, with benefits counted through 2029. The partners on the ground were the Forest Service, the National Forest Foundation, the Middle Deschutes Watershed Council, and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Ingram is federal land. It is not a parcel anyone is going to buy, and no one should write a policy on it. The meadow is the stock [inland-wetlands.ensurance](/inland-wetlands.ensurance?from=guide) and [water-cycle.syndicate](/water-cycle.syndicate?from=guide) already name. ## the wells, in one paragraph Under Prineville, the city, Apple, and Meta share a set of aquifer wells that pull shallow groundwater near the Crooked in winter, when nobody is irrigating, and inject it upslope for summer recovery. Apple's grant for the first well was $8.7 million, in the city's own release. Phase I has been injecting since 2021. LimnoTech attributes 30.3 million gallons a year to Meta's cost share, through 2030, and the city monitors and maintains the system. With the meadow, that made 31.8 million gallons in the 2024 Columbia chapter of the report. A Phase II at about 150 million gallons a year is anticipated and still sits in the not-yet-generating appendix. If you want the method, it is [managed aquifer recharge](/guide/managed-aquifer-recharge?from=guide), and that post teaches it; this one will not. :::johnson **the gallons already counted are a meadow and a wellfield. the creek is the one with a fish in it.** `crooked river` is in ideation under [rivers-lakes.ensurance](/rivers-lakes.ensurance?from=guide). You can help shape it before it is minted. [co-create crooked river →](/specific/create?mode=suggest&agent=rivers-lakes.ensurance&name=crooked%20river&from=guide) ::: ## the living thing is not "water" Here is the shift this post is for. Corporate water reports count gallons because gallons are what you can add across projects and compare to a withdrawal. That is honest accounting and it should continue. But a steelhead does not need 35 million gallons. It needs about six miles of connected creek in the months it is moving. A fen does not store 1.5 million gallons. It holds snowmelt into July and lets it go slowly. The gallon is the unit. The creek and the meadow are the things. Once you see it that way, the Crooked's story stops looking like a list of projects and starts looking like a sequence. The meadow was the easiest living thing to fix, and it was done first. The wells were the most urgent for a small city with a hot-week problem, and they came second. The creek is the hardest, because it involves 898 irrigators, a reservoir, a pipeline, state water law, and a fish. It is still ahead. If steelhead need a cousin to make sense of this, they are the trout relative of the fish in [what salmon actually are](/guide/what-salmon-actually-are?from=guide), and they need the same thing: connected water, not a count. ## who already carries this, and what a line would add The people doing the work are the heroes here, and they are many. Ochoco Irrigation District on the exchange. The Forest Service and its partners on the meadow. The City of Prineville running the wells. Apple and Meta writing the checks that built them. The Deschutes River Conservancy and the Deschutes Land Trust on the creek. The gap is not effort. It is shape. Each project so far is a construction gift: one check, one appendix row, one claim window that ends in 2029 or 2030. When the window closes, the meadow still needs to be a meadow and the creek still needs to be a creek, and the report has moved on to the next project. That is where **ensurance** comes in, only here, after the living things are clear. A **line** on the Crooked River would be a certificate that the people who already depend on this water could hold together: a utility, a land steward, and a campus, each carrying a repeating share of the river's condition rather than a one-time gift to one structure. It is not a policy on federal land. It is not a replacement for the volumetric report; the report keeps counting gallons, and the line funds the things that produce them. Ensurance funds the river. It is not the river. That line, `crooked river` under `rivers-lakes.ensurance`, is in ideation. It has not been minted. You can [co-create it](/specific/create?mode=suggest&agent=rivers-lakes.ensurance&name=crooked%20river&from=guide): a person reviews the suggestion, and it is recorded against `rivers-lakes.ensurance`. Early shaping is what makes the eventual line fit the creek instead of the other way around. ## frequently asked questions ### is mckay creek in oregon the same as mckay dam? No. McKay Dam and McKay Reservoir are near Pendleton in the Umatilla basin. The McKay Creek in this post is a tributary of the Crooked River in Crook County that joins the Crooked at Prineville. Different creek, different river, different story. ### why does mckay creek go dry? Irrigation diversions. Ranches along the creek hold water rights that are exercised in summer, and the diversions take enough flow that about six miles of the creek run nearly dry in the irrigation season. The water is in the valley, in the ditches, not in the channel. ### what is the mckay creek exchange? A water-rights exchange in which McKay Creek irrigators would take stored Prineville Reservoir water from Ochoco Irrigation District, delivered by pipeline and pump, and transfer their creek rights instream. LimnoTech's August 2025 report lists it as anticipated at about 35 million gallons a year, for steelhead, and not yet counted. ### is there a crooked river certificate? A `crooked river` line under `rivers-lakes.ensurance` is in ideation and is not minted. You can [suggest and co-create it](/specific/create?mode=suggest&agent=rivers-lakes.ensurance&name=crooked%20river&from=guide); a person reviews the suggestion, and it is recorded against `rivers-lakes.ensurance`. ## what comes next The next post is about the ten hottest days in Prineville and what the wells were built for. The one after that is about who already pays for this river and what a second layer looks like. For now, hold the picture. One August, if the pipeline goes in and the rights go instream, McKay Creek runs through Prineville in the heat with cold water in it, and a fish that has not been able to get up this creek in a working lifetime tries. That is the reach the exchange has not wetted yet. If you run the utility that depends on this water, the door is [source watershed investment](/solutions/utilities?from=guide&topic=crooked-river). ## sources [LimnoTech, Volumetric Water Benefits: 2024 Report, for Meta, August 2025](https://sustainability.atmeta.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/REVISED_FINAL_Meta_2024_Volumetric_Water_Benefit_Report_08.21.2025.pdf) — Ingram Meadow (15 acres, 1.5 MGY, through 2029), Prineville ASR Phase I (30.3 MGY attributed to Meta's share, through 2030), 31.8 MGY combined in 2024, McKay Creek exchange anticipated at 35 MGY for steelhead and not yet counted, Phase II anticipated at 150 MGY [City of Prineville press release on the Apple grant](https://www.meadowlakesgc.com/sites/default/files/fileattachments/city_administration/page/12381/press_release_-_prineville_apple_002.pdf) — $8.7 million for the first aquifer well [Federal Register, 15 January 2013 — nonessential experimental population of Middle Columbia River steelhead above Round Butte Dam](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2013/01/15/2013-00700/endangered-and-threatened-species-designation-of-a-nonessential-experimental-population-for-middle) — names the Crooked River to Bowman Dam and the Ochoco Creek and McKay Creek watersheds [Ochoco Irrigation District, water right](https://ochocoid.org/operations/water-right/) — about 20,062 acres, 898 irrigators, Ochoco and Prineville Reservoir operations [Deschutes River Conservancy, WaterSMART proposal to the Bureau of Reclamation, 2023](https://www.usbr.gov/watersmart/cwmp/docs/2023/CWMP-09_DeschutesRiverConservancy_508.pdf) — Lower Crooked subbasin HUC 17070305, Bowman Dam to Lake Billy Chinook [Census QuickFacts, Prineville city, Oregon](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/prinevillecityoregon) — 10,736 at the 1 April 2020 census; 11,994 estimated 1 July 2025 ## the series 1. [the crooked already has a meadow and a wellfield](/guide/what-the-crooked-river-depends-on?from=guide) 2. [who depends on the crooked river](/guide/who-depends-on-the-crooked-river?from=guide) 3. [six miles of mckay creek still go dry](/guide/mckay-creek-still-goes-dry?from=guide) 4. [the ten hottest days in prineville](/guide/the-ten-hottest-days-in-prineville?from=guide) 5. [apple and the city already paid for the well](/guide/who-already-pays-for-the-crooked-river?from=guide)