---
title: apple and the city already paid for the well
canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/who-already-pays-for-the-crooked-river
markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/who-already-pays-for-the-crooked-river.md
subtitle: the next check is a hold other people can carry
category: nature-finance
---

# apple and the city already paid for the well

*the next check is a hold other people can carry*

Apple wrote a check for $8.7 million and the City of Prineville built a well with it. The city's release named the figure and the job: the first injection well for the aquifer storage and recovery system under town. The well went in. Phase I has been injecting since 2021. The check cleared once.

That is the shape of almost all corporate water money. A capital gift buys a structure, a ribbon gets cut, and the structure spends the next thirty years moving water whose condition nobody has agreed to pay for on a schedule.

Prineville is one of the few places where that pattern is already half-broken. It is a city of 10,736 people at the 2020 census, an estimated 11,994 by 1 July 2025, with three data centers on a small municipal system. In March 2026 the city's public-works lead told KTVZ those three use about 10 percent of the water used in Prineville. The May 2024 Bend Bulletin described that share for peak days — about the ten hottest. Both sentences are true about different days, and the gap between them is the whole design problem.

## the checks already written

| who | what they already do on the crooked | what it bought |
|---|---|---|
| Meta | Cost-shares the Prineville recharge wells and the Ingram Meadow restoration on Auger Creek | The Columbia chapter of the 2024 volumetric report, issued August 2025, counts 31.8 million gallons a year across the two — 1.5 from the meadow, 30.3 from the wells |
| Apple | Funded the first injection well, a city-stated grant of $8.7 million | The structure Phase I has been injecting through since 2021 |
| City of Prineville | Co-funds the wellfield, and monitors and maintains it | Winter water banked underground against the summer peak the city actually plans for |
| Ochoco National Forest / National Forest Foundation | Hold and restored about 15 acres of wet meadow on Auger Creek — plug-and-pond finished in 2019, with the Forest Service, the Middle Deschutes Watershed Council, and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation | 1.5 million gallons a year of storage in a fen that had been draining, counted through 2029 |
| Ochoco Irrigation District | Operates Ochoco and Prineville Reservoir for about 898 irrigators across roughly 20,062 acres | The stored water that makes the McKay Creek exchange possible at all |

Nobody in that table is new to this river. The coordination problem everyone writes think pieces about — several large water users, one small shared source, no venue — was solved here years ago, in cash, by a city and two companies that could have issued a press release instead.

What has not happened is the second check.

## a gift builds the well. a hold keeps the water worth injecting.

An injection well is a straw into basalt. What it banks is winter flow in the Crooked, and winter flow is a product of the ground upstream: the meadows that hold snowmelt instead of shedding it, the incised channels that have or have not been plugged, the creeks that run or go dry. The technique has a name and [its own page](/guide/managed-aquifer-recharge?from=guide); the technique is not the issue. The issue is that $8.7 million bought a structure, and the condition of the water that structure moves is still on nobody's recurring budget.

The meadow makes this concrete. Ingram is counted through 2029. The wells are attributed through 2030. Those end dates are not a scandal — they are honest accounting of a one-time capital project. But a wet meadow does not stop needing attention in 2030, and the Crooked does not stop being the reason the wellfield has anything to bank.

This is the oldest idea in insurance, applied upstream instead of after the loss: several parties exposed to the same failure [pay into the same pot before it happens](/guide/you-dont-have-to-shoulder-it-alone?from=guide). On the Crooked, the exposure is already shared. The payment structure stopped at construction.

## what a source water protection partnership looks like on the crooked river

A **source water protection partnership** is an agreement in which the parties who draw from the same source pay, on a repeating schedule, for the condition of the land and water that produces it. Not for a pipe. Not for a one-off project with a plaque. For condition — measured, reported, and renewed.

On this river the parties are already identified. The city runs the system. Apple paid for the first well. Meta cost-shares the wells and the meadow and reports the volumes. The Forest Service and the National Forest Foundation hold the meadow. Ochoco Irrigation District holds the storage and the water rights that make the creek exchange thinkable. A partnership here does not need to convene anyone new. It needs an instrument that more than one of them can hold at the same time, on the same named reach, with the same reporting.

In *[ensurance](/specific?from=guide)*, that instrument is a **line** — a certificate tied to a named natural asset where no fee-title holder has signed on as the titleholder of record. A line funds the condition of a place without claiming the deed to it. It is the correct shape for a river that runs through federal meadow, municipal infrastructure, a Reclamation project, and 898 private irrigators, none of whom are selling.

:::johnson
**the wells were bought once. the river comes due every year.**

The meadow and the wellfield were bought once, by two companies and a city. What they protect — winter flow, a draining fen, six dry miles of McKay Creek — comes due every year.

[see the parent agent →](/rivers-lakes.ensurance?from=guide)
:::

## the offer, by buyer

Three parties on this reach can act without waiting for anyone else. Each has a different exposure, so each gets a different unit.

| buyer | exposure | what we deliver | what it funds | unit | door |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meta | 328 megaliters withdrawn at Prineville in the 2024 facility table, on a city system whose hot-day share the city has already described publicly | The *water-neutral data center* use case, plus *watershed & hydrology services* | The condition on McKay and the reach below the exchange, held year to year beside the gallons the wells already bank — not a second construction gift | One reportable partnership on `crooked river`, beside the 31.8 million gallons already counted — not a dollar line | [data centers →](/solutions/data-centers?from=guide&topic=crooked-river) |
| Apple | The first well is built and that money is spent; the Prineville campus still sits on the same tap, on the same ten days | *facility protection* | The repeating hold that follows the construction gift | One partnership line per Prineville campus, next to the well it already funded | [corporations →](/solutions/corporations?from=guide&topic=crooked-river) |
| City of Prineville | Peak days — about the ten hottest — when the three data centers are roughly a tenth of city use | *municipal watershed protection* | Winter water already banked, shown to ratepayers as a watershed partnership rather than a line item | Per peak summer day the stored winter water covers, held as that partnership | [governments →](/solutions/governments?from=guide&topic=crooked-river) |

None of these replaces the volumetric report. Meta's reporting counts gallons attributable to its cost share, and it should keep doing exactly that. A partnership on the line is the other column: a durable, held position on a named reach that several parties can appear on together, which a volumetric table cannot show because it is built to attribute, not to share.

## ochoco is the counterparty, not a line item

The six miles that matter most on this river are not in the 2024 count at all. McKay Creek — the Crooked River tributary at Prineville, not McKay Dam on the Umatilla — goes dry for about six miles when irrigation season runs. The proposed exchange leaves stored Prineville Reservoir water with irrigators and transfers the creek rights instream, which is how reintroduced steelhead get a hydrograph instead of a dry bed. Reintroduced steelhead above Pelton Round Butte sit on a project co-owned by Portland General Electric and the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, downstream sovereigns, and not a party this series invoices. LimnoTech lists about 35 million gallons a year as anticipated from it. Anticipated, not counted.

That work belongs to Ochoco Irrigation District, the Deschutes River Conservancy, the Crooked River Watershed Council, the Deschutes Land Trust, and the irrigators themselves. They are the party on the creek. Nobody sends a district an invoice for its own water right, and nothing described here does. The partnership pays for the exchange and the condition around it. The district keeps its water and stays the counterparty it already is.

Same rule on the meadow. Ingram sits on the Ochoco National Forest. It is federal ground, restored by people who have been at it for years. The money goes to the work, not to the title.

## the line is `crooked river`, and it is in ideation

`crooked river` is a candidate line under [`rivers-lakes.ensurance`](/rivers-lakes.ensurance?from=guide), the live parent agent for river and lake stocks. It is not minted. It sits in ideation, which is a real status with a real door: you can co-create it, a person reviews the suggestion, and the parent agent is what receives it.

[suggest `crooked river` under rivers-lakes.ensurance →](/specific/create?mode=suggest&agent=rivers-lakes.ensurance&name=crooked%20river&from=guide)

If you are the one who would hold it — a campus, a city, a utility, a district — the suggestion is worth more coming from you than from us, because the first holder's exposure is what shapes the unit.

## frequently asked questions

### what is a source water protection partnership?

A source water protection partnership is a repeating agreement among the parties who draw from one source to fund the condition of the land and water that produces it. On the Crooked that means the meadow, the winter flow the wells bank, and the six miles of McKay Creek — paid for annually, by more than one payor, on one named reach.

### is this just another construction gift?

No. The wells and the meadow were capital projects with end dates on their benefit claims — 2029 for Ingram, 2030 for Phase I attribution. A held line is the opposite shape: small, repeating, renewable, and visible to more than one holder at a time.

### does it replace meta's volumetric water report?

It does not. Volumetric accounting attributes gallons to a cost share; it is the right tool for that job and Meta's 2024 Columbia chapter does it. A partnership on the line shows something the table cannot: several parties holding the same reach at once.

### what about phase ii?

Phase II of the recharge system is anticipated at 150 million gallons a year and was still in the not-yet-generating appendix of the August 2025 report. Treat it as anticipated, not banked. The creek exchange is in the same category — real, designed, uncounted.

## what comes next

The meadow was finished in 2019. The wells have been injecting since 2021. Both were bought with one-time money by people who did not have to spend it, and both are still working. McKay is what nobody has finished paying for, and a repeating check is the instrument that finishes it.

If you sit on any side of this — campus, city hall, district office, or the forest — the next move is a conversation about what a unit should be on your books before it is a conversation about price.

[talk to someone who can help →](/contact?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) — the 31.8 million gallons counted in 2024 across Ingram Meadow and Prineville ASR Phase I, and the anticipated figures for Phase II and the McKay Creek exchange

[City of Prineville release on the Apple grant](https://www.meadowlakesgc.com/sites/default/files/fileattachments/city_administration/page/12381/press_release_-_prineville_apple_002.pdf) — the $8.7 million grant for the first injection well, as stated by the city

[KTVZ, 5 March 2026](https://ktvz.com/news/problem-solvers/2026/03/05/problem-solvers-tech-investment-in-state-of-the-art-water-system-could-reshape-prinevilles-economy/) — the city public-works remark that the three data centers use about 10 percent of the water used in Prineville

[Bend Bulletin, 9 May 2024](https://bendbulletin.com/2024/05/09/prineville-doubles-down-on-water-conservation-with-tech-giant-backed-project/) — the peak-day reading of that share, about the ten hottest days

[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. [what the crooked depends on](/guide/what-the-crooked-river-depends-on?from=guide)
2. [who depends on it](/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)