1/21/2024 0 Comments Pond dredging, portland oregon![]() ![]() ![]() No one knows for sure what the river flowing by Drake Park would look like if the hydroelectric dam was torn down. And (we) try to ask all the questions - what would happen?” “Everything from removing the dam, at one end of the spectrum, to doing nothing and sitting on our hands. “When we look at a project like Mirror Pond, we really try to put all of the crazy ideas on the table,” said Ryan Houston, executive director of the Upper Deschutes Watershed Council. One option could be to remove the dam and turn Mirror Pond back into a free-flowing section of the Deschutes River. No one has yet determined what those alternatives will be, but the plan is to encompass a range of ideas. ![]() The pond was dredged in 1984, and this winter a group of local government and business representatives decided to hire a consultant to lead an effort to examine ways to clean up Mirror Pond in the future. Mirror Pond is man-made, formed in 1913 with the construction of a hydroelectric dam near the Newport Avenue bridge.Īnd the slow water flowing by Drake Park comes with problems - sediments and aquatic plants have built up behind the dam, leaving smelly muck exposed when the river is low. Courtesy Deschutes County Historical Societyįor a century, Mirror Pond has been a focal point of Bend and the backdrop to images of the city. The photo, likely taken before the dam was constructed in 1910, shows a wilder, free-running river, an undeveloped west bank and the land that would become Drake Park, at center. This undated archive photo, taken looking upstream from the east bank at about where the Newport Avenue bridge is now, shows the Deschutes River at what is now Mirror Pond. ![]()
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