On a blue-sky day, the top of the North Sister glistens white in the distance and reflects back on the surface. Stately homes grace the tree-lined shores and well-maintained trails lead to a series of parks and playgrounds.
…
On a blue-sky day, the top of the North Sister glistens white in the distance and reflects back on the surface. Stately homes grace the tree-lined shores and well-maintained trails lead to a series of parks and playgrounds.
But the future of Mirror Pond is anything but clear.
Last October, thanks to well-below-average rainfall and the third leak in five years in a decrepit dam, Mirror Pond all but disappeared, revealing wide expanses of smelly mudflats, sandbars and the old riverbed, along with trash thrown in by people or blown in by storms.
The low water added an exclamation point to a looming community decision on whether to shore up the pond or let the Middle Deschutes River flow freely through town once again. Surveys show that the city is split down the middle.
“It is well-loved by the public — an icon of Bend’s past and what brought many people to Bend,” said Jim Figurski, a landscape architect and the Mirror Pond point man for the Bend Park & Recreation District. “But it has had issues for a long time that all revolves around sedimentation and silt buildup, which happens anytime you have a dam.”
Mirror Pond really isn’t a pond at all, just the first slack water of the Middle Deschutes as the river travels from its source at Little Lava Lake, through Wickiup Reservoir and north to the Columbia River, a 250-mile trip with an elevation drop of 4,500 feet.
During the ensuing 30 years, the sediment has continued to build up, making the pond shallower and narrowing its width. Exposed mudflats and increased shoreline vegetation growth returned less than three years after the 1984 dredging.
The question of whether to dredge once more has cropped up again and again, but the discussion has remained “a start-stop process with never any real results,” Figurski said.
Now the city and the various stakeholders seem close to making a final decision on how to deal with the problem.
“My most optimistic side says that we might have a preferred direction this summer with a vision (drawing) of what that might look like in late summer or fall,” Figurski said. “But that all depends on current negotiations and the Ad Hoc Committee coming to a final decision.”
***
Figurski was brought in to start a “visioning process” in 2012, an attempt by park officials and the Bend City Council to find out what the community thought should be done to preserve, or not preserve, Mirror Pond.
— The first scenario calls for doing nothing. The dam remains and silt will continue to build up.
One other option in this scenario would keep the status quo for 30 years, then remove the dam, with the side slopes down to the river graded and replanted. Cost: $10.9 million for dam removal, paid for by PacifiCorp.
— The second scenario calls for keeping the dam in place and dredging Mirror Pond. Cost: $5.7 million.
— The third scenario calls for dredging and using the sediment to create new lawn areas on public parklands. But the silt is expected to build back up in 30 years. Cost: $3.5 million
A variation of this scenario calls for partially dredging Mirror Pond and creating new lawn areas. Then in 30 years, removing the dam, with the shallow waters retreating to the original channel. Cost: $8.8 million.
— The fourth scenario calls for removing the dam, changing the location of the channel and creating new parkland. Cost: $10.6 million ($4.2 million for dam removal, $6.4 million for channel relocation).
A fifth, hybrid proposal was put forth by the Bend Paddle Trail Alliance and other supporters last October. It includes removing the dam, but building a weir upstream of the Newport Bridge, just west of downtown Bend. Mirror Pond is about 7,000 feet long, stretching from the dam south to Galveston Bridge.
The weir would allow water to pool, essentially keeping a smaller but still iconic Mirror Pond stretching from the weir south to the Galveston Bridge.
David Blair, who represents an informal group of Mirror Pond supporters including members of the paddle trail alliance, said the hybrid idea would allow the river to flow naturally beyond the weir while preserving the pond.
By removing the dam, the proposal would expose more land that could be developed around the dam and powerhouse, which is one of Bend’s oldest buildings. It’s a part of downtown Bend that is now mostly unused.
“I don’t think it’s very complicated, Blair said. “Very few people have said it needs to remain the same as it is now. We think the community is committed to keeping and saving the pond.”
***
PacifiCorp, which operates as the electric utility Pacific Power in Oregon, owns the dam, but the powerhouse there generates very little energy and the company isn’t inclined to keep it operating or make major repairs, company officials say.
In January, PacifiCorp agreed to if not repair the dam, to at least stem the leaks. As part of that, the company on Thursday will stop the flow from the reservoir so engineers can examine the dam.
To keep the pond full, PacifiCorp in April plans is to sink a large steel plate on the upstream side of the dam to keep water from flowing through the breaches.
“Though the dam remains safe, we fully understand the community’s concern about the potential for low water levels during summer recreation months,” said Mark Tallman, PacifiCorp’s vice president for renewable resources. “It’s possible Mirror Pond would have remained full this summer without this fix, but in our view this is the right action to take at this time.”
The Mirror Pond Ad Hoc Committee – a collection of city officials, homeowners and community activists — is working toward a final preferred alternative that will include research into legal hurdles and permit issues. The committee is scheduled to meet in late March.
Nick Braun, a Central Oregon Community College student, photographer and fisherman, sees the issue pretty simply: He thinks the dam should be torn down and some of the river returned to its natural state for fish habitat, but find a way to keep at least a portion of the pond intact.
Braun’s pictures of Mirror Pond have been featured prominently on the Mirror Pond Facebook page.
“As a photographer I see the beauty of the pond,’’ Braun said. “It’s Bend’s iconic image and it surprises me that the community can’t come together.”
For Blair, the the central issue is what does the community want.
“We need to make a decision and get it done,” he said.
–Stuart Tomlinson