Skyrocket gilia blooms beside the shoreline trail on the north side of Phillips Reservoir near Union Creek Campground on Sunday, June 18, 2023.

When Jeff Colton looks across Phillips Reservoir he has to crane his neck a bit more than he’s used to doing.

But he’d be happy to stretch it farther, even at the risk of pulling a muscle.

Colton manages the Baker Valley Irrigation District, for which the reservoir, on the Powder River about 17 miles southwest of Baker City, is the sole source of stored water.

After the past two years, dominated by one of the worst droughts since the reservoir first filled in 1968, Phillips, though still less than full, is holding more water than it has in almost six years.

And Colton hopes this is just the start of a new, and much more damp, trend that will at least temporarily banish the drought.

“This is great,” Colton said on Wednesday, June 14. “This is the way springs are supposed to be.”

Two days earlier the reservoir reached a milestone it had last touched almost six years ago.

Phillips exceeded 53,000 acre-feet of water. That’s the most it has impounded since early August 2017.

Not coincidentally, 2017 was also the last year the reservoir was full, at 73,000 acre-feet.

(The reservoir can actually store an additional 17,000 acre-feet if needed for flood control. One acre-foot of water would cover one acre of flat ground to a depth of one foot. One acre-foot equals almost 326,000 gallons.)

In the ensuing six years the reservoir hasn’t come close to filling.

The peak, until this month, was June 14, 2019, when Phillips topped out at 52,151 acre-feet.

The next three years — and in particular the latter two — were dismal by comparison, with maximum storage of:

• 2020 — 42,742 acre-feet on June 24.

• 2021 — 16,632 acre-feet on April 26.

• 2022 — 18,850 acre-feet on June 23.

By late 2022, after the irrigation season, the reservoir was about as close to empty as it can get, holding little more than 1,000 acre-feet.

Mark Ward, whose family grows potatoes, wheat, alfalfa, peppermint and other crops, and depends on water from the reservoir, was standing atop Mason Dam on Monday morning, June 19, preparing to take a photograph of the reservoir.

“I drove up this morning to see what 53,000 (acre-feet) looks like,” Ward said in a phone interview. “I haven’t seen that for a while. It looks darned good.”

Rapid refilling

The turnaround started with a bountiful winter snowpack — the biggest source of water for the reservoir.

But Colton has pointed out that deep snow doesn’t always equate to a significant rise in the reservoir level.

In 2021, for instance, the snowpack was above average but much of the melted snow soaked into the drought-desiccated soil that spring rather than flowing into the streams that feed the reservoir.

The Powder River is the biggest of those sources. In the spring of 2021 the river, measured at Hudspeth Lane just west of the reservoir, reached a peak flow of 173 cubic feet per second (cfs).

But 2023 has been quite different.

The peak flow on the Powder at Hudspeth Lane topped 550 cfs. More important, the daily average exceeded 200 cfs on 48 straight days, starting on April 27.

That’s more days with an average flow above 200 cfs than the previous three years combined — 38 (15 in 2022, none in 2021, 23 in 2020).

Since April 1, the reservoir’s volume has risen by about 48,000 acre-feet — more than in any other spring for at least the past 15 years.

Because this spring has been wetter than usual, farmers and ranchers downriver didn’t need irrigation water as early as the previous few years, so Colton was able to store most of the water flowing into the reservoir.

This spring was dramatically different from the past two, Ward said. This spring was not only wetter, which reduced the need for irrigation water from the reservoir, but there was considerably less wind, he said.

Persistent wind can leach a lot of moisture from the soil, forcing farmers to use more irrigation water to prevent their crops from dying or being stunted, Ward said.

Irrigation needs

After storing almost all of the water flowing into the reservoir early in the spring, the situation changed around the middle of May, when Colton started releasing more water to meet irrigation needs as alfalfa and other crops started growing.

The outflow from the reservoir peaked at around 250 cfs from May 25 through June 1, dropped to 130 cfs late on June 9, then rose again to about 184 cfs on June 14, where it remained on Monday morning, June 19.

The reservoir continued to rise, albeit more slowly, through June 17.

Colton said last week that the outflow will remain relatively steady for another week or so, as many farmers and ranchers have made their first cutting of alfalfa and won’t need irrigation water for a while.

The reservoir likely has reached its peak volume for the year, though, since much of the mountain snow has melted. The Powder’s flow at Hudspeth Lane dropped below 200 cfs on June 14.

Colton said he will increase the flow from the reservoir to around 300 cfs for a couple weeks later in the summer — the normal schedule as summer heat boosts the need for irrigation water during the peak of the growing season.

That will steadily deplete the reservoir.

But not nearly as much as during the previous three years, Colton said.

He said the irrigation district’s board of directors wants to keep the reservoir at a minimum of 27% of capacity by the end of the irrigation season this fall — about 20,000 acre-feet.

That would be the highest carryover since the fall of 2017, when the reservoir’s lowest level was 31,700 acre-feet.

By maintaining at least 20,000 acre-feet heading into the winter, Colton said, the district can avoid repeating the doldrums of 2021 and 2022, when the reservoir never held that much water at any point of either year.

Leaving that much water will also boost the odds that Phillips will reach full, or close to it, in the spring of 2024, he said.

Had the reservoir started this spring with 20,000 acre-feet — instead of the 5,000 that it actually stored — it would have topped out at around 68,000 acre-feet, which is 93% full.

Ward said he considers it “prudent and smart” for the district to retain water in the reservoir this fall.

“You can’t be shortsighted,” Ward said. “We use the water we need, not just because it’s available.”

With a carryover of at least 20,000 acre-feet, it’s much easier for farmers to plan their 2024 crops, he said, since they can be confident that irrigation water will be relatively plentiful.

Despite saving water for 2024, the irrigation district will supply 1.5 acre-feet of irrigation water per acre, Colton said. That’s more than three times the 0.4 acre-feet per acre allocated last year.

In years when the reservoir is full or nearly so, the district can supply 3.5 acre-feet per acre.

Recreation benefits

Although Mason Dam was built to store irrigation water and reduce the risk of downstream flooding, the reservoir has also been a popular recreation site for more than half a century.

The drought of 2021-22, though, left boat ramp and dock at Union Creek Campground, on the north shore, stranded above the water.

This spring has been a dramatic contrast.

“People are thrilled to have the boat dock in the water and campers are happy to have a nearly full reservoir,” said Chelsea Judy, marketing director for the Anthony Lakes Outdoor Recreation Association, which manages the campground for the U.S. Forest Service.

The rising reservoir has also shrunk the distance between the shoreline trails on both the north and south sides of the reservoir. When the reservoir was a figurative puddle, the water was barely visible, if at all, from sections of the trail, particularly on the northwest side.

Now, though, the reservoir has risen enough that in many places the water is a literal stone’s throw from the path.

“This is great. This is the way springs are supposed to be.”

— Jeff Colton, manager, Baker Valley Irrigation District