Oregon state law requires cities, including Bend and Redmond, to maintain a twenty-year supply of land to build on to meet projected growth. The Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) is the tool designed to maintain space for a city to grow while protecting farmland and wildlife habitat from unchecked sprawl. Once a city falls below the 25-year supply they must apply to expand the UGB — over 90% of the applications are approved.

Cities are also under obligation to provide water, sewer and public safety including police and fire response services to residents and businesses. The City of Bend gets approximately 40% of its water from the underground Deschutes regional aquifer and 60% from pulling water from Bridge Creek which is a tributary of the Deschutes River. The Deschutes aquifer, also supplies Redmond, Madras, Prineville, and wells on farms and residences in the more rural parts of the region. The aquifer is being over-pumped and water levels are in decline. Both Redmond and Bend have applied to the Oregon Water Resources Department to pump additional water from the aquifer. So far, the state has said it expects to reject Redmond’s permit and Bend’s request is under review.

Central Oregon is one of the fastest growing regions in the state and the country and has been for many years; our local cities are nearly continuously expanding urban growth boundaries. These expansions lead to more conversion of forests and wildlands and extension of the built environment into more fire-prone areas. In fact, the Bulletin recently reported that new rules are being placed on homeowners in high-risk wildfire areas in Central Oregon.

A consistent narrative from local elected officials and the construction industry is that the expansion and growth is necessary to meet the need for affordable housing, and indeed there is great need for more affordable housing options. However, affordability is about more than just the purchase price or rent. Are we considering the affordability of water when the groundwater drops and wells run dry and the river cannot make up the difference? Or, how affordable will things become when insurers refuse to provide coverage due to fire risk and the resources necessary to manage the fires mushroom? Affordability goals certainly aren’t met when difficult-to-access, low-water neighborhoods burn to the ground as is currently being brutally demonstrated in California.

While the city of Bend is making notable gains building more affordable housing units, much of the new conversion and construction has little to do with affordability and is being created by, and profiting, out-of-state corporate interests that will never live near these projects. Central Oregon is already losing trees, urban habitat, mule deer and song birds to concrete, asphalt, and shopping malls. The new Costco complex epitomizes this war on nature. Now the water is in decline. Yet, at the same time elected officials are urging residents to conserve water, they are moving forward on additional UGB expansions.

I realize Central Oregonians can’t just pull up the drawbridge (as people who point out the limits I’m writing about here are often accused of) and we certainly have some great people and great ideas migrating into this region. And yet, some time, somewhere, communities and humanity are going to have to come to terms with the fact that we do not exist outside of ecological boundaries or the laws of physics. Perhaps it’s time for leadership, elected or otherwise, to face the reality before us, and challenge the norm of accommodating an unsustainable growth rate and the nearly automatic step of expanding ever further into and across our increasingly depleted and strained region.

Cylvia Hayes is author of Transcend on Substack, an ordained Unity Worldwide minister, and former First Lady of Oregon.

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