Arnold Irrigation District has announced a delay in turning on water this year due to unforeseen factors that have slowed the second phase of its multi-million canal piping project, leading to a dry start to spring for residents of the southeast Bend district.

District manager Colin Wills says wintertime construction work will be complete by May 31, a month past the original target date of Apr. 30. The delay is primarily due to soggy conditions on the road being used to haul material in and out of the construction zone where pipe is being laid to replace a century-old canal.

“The haul roads have turned into muddy soup and are almost impassable,” Wills told patrons in a March 31 letter. “The trucks are forced to go extremely slow for safety reasons and to avoid splashing and pushing mud into the adjacent yards.”

Arnold delivers water to 493 properties in southeast Bend, most of which operate as hobby farms. A handful are commercial farming operations, including North 44 Farms and Barely Beef.

In addition to slow drive times in the area, Wills said fluctuating temperatures — from freezing to warm — has slowed efforts to weld sections of pipe together. This has reduced the amount of pipe that can be installed each day. Delays in pipe delivery due to manufacturing issues have also had a negative impact on the schedule.

Arnold Irrigation District is piping 15,000 linear feet (about 2.8 miles) of canal this year. Last winter the district piped 17,000 linear feet (3.2 miles) of canal.

Cattle ranch owner Rob Rastovich, a patron of Arnold Irrigation District, says that despite the delay in water delivery this year he still expects this to be a good water year for his district.

“The delay was unforeseen and it’s unfortunate. We have a good snowpack and now we are going to be delayed because of construction. But I don’t think it will have a major impact,” said Rastovich.

Rastovich, whose century-old farm is located on Bend’s eastern outskirts, described the period from April 15 to June 1 as a “kind of a wildcard time” for crop development because of cold snaps in the spring.

“It is nice to have it to get the ground wet but we have had a good spring. So I think the (net effect) is that (the delay) won’t have a huge impact as long as we can stay with the May 31 deadline,” he added.

When the project is complete — expected during the winter of 2025-2026 — Arnold Irrigation District’s $35 million project will feature 12 miles of pipe and conserve 32.5 cubic feet of water per second in the Deschutes River.

The piping is expected to help Arnold extend its irrigation season. The district has been chronically short of water in recent years — it was forced to shut off water to patrons mid-season between 2020 and 2023.

Arnold and other irrigation districts in Central Oregon are in a race to pipe as much canal as possible this decade to stay on a strict timeline for conservation established by the Deschutes Basin Habitat Conservation Plan.

The plan, a coordinated effort by the eight irrigation districts in Central Oregon, was approved four years ago by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It allows the districts to continue operating even though their use of water has shown to be detrimental to threatened species, including the Oregon spotted frog.

In exchange, the districts must increase the amount of water released into the Deschutes River in winter. Because the released water was historically held back for farmers, the districts must find other ways to conserve water for their patrons — on-farm improvements and canal piping are now the primary methods of conservation.

The announcement of the irrigation delay came with other news from the district that it is shutting down a section of Knott Road as crews remove a bridge that previously went over a canal.

A detour to get around the section where the bridge was located has been established and will be in effect through April 26. The bridge is being removed and a newly paved road will be built over the buried pipe. The detoured route includes China Hat Road, Parrell Road, Murphy Road and Country Club Drive.