WORKING PAPER NO. 40
COLUMBIA RIVER BASIN PROJECT
FOR WATER SUPPLY AND WATER QUALITY MANAGEMENT
TRENDS IN LAND USE IN THE
UMPQUA BASIN, OREGON
DATE; January 9, 1963 DISTRIBUTION
Prepared by WEB Project Staff
Reviewed by Cooperating Agencies
Approved by General
U. S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION AND WELFARE
Public Health Service
Region IX
Division of Water Supply and Pollution Control
Room 570 Pittock Block
Portland 5, Oregon
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this working paper contains preliminary data and information
primarily intended for internal use by the Columbia River
Basin Project staff and cooperating agencies. The material
presented in this paper has not been fully evaluated and
should not be considered as final.
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TRENDS IN LAND USE IN THE
UMPQUA BASIN, OREGON
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
LAND CLASSIFICATION
THE SITUATION ON FOREST LAND
AND IN FOREST PRODUCTS
THE SITUATION ON CROPLAND
POLLUTION PROBLEMS AND FORECASTS
Prepared by: Head, Land Use Section
Water Supply and Pollution
Control Program,
Pacific Northwest
January 1963
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TRENDS IN LAND USE IN THE
UMPQUA BASIN, OREGON
IHTRODUCTION
The Umpqua River Basin is practically synonymous with Douglas County,
Oregon. It has an area of a little less than 5,000 square miles, and drains
vest from the crest of the Cascade Mountains through the Coast Range to the
Pacific Ocean. The valleys are narrow, with no broad, flat areas. Summers
are hot and dry, winters cool and wet. Most of the water supply comes from
snow stored in the forests of the high Cascade Mountains.
LAND CLASSIFICATION
The 3,239,000 acres of Douglas County are classified as follows, accord-
ing to the D. S. Department of Agriculture Columbia River Basin Agricultural
Program Report:
Ownership Forest Range Irrig. Non-Irrig. Other Total
Area in Acres
Federal 1,631,000 11,000 - - 10,000 1,652,000
Local Gov't 41,000 37,000 - - 2,000 80,000
Private 1,180,000 150,000 4,000 153,000 20,000 1,507,000
Total 2,852,000 198,000 4,000 153,000 32,000 3,239,000
This shows the situation as of 1951. The Oregon Soil and Water
Conservation Needs Inventory with 1958 data shows irrigated cropland in-
creased to 13,000 acres. Definitions are sufficiently different to make
comparisons from the two data sources difficult; but forest land appears to
be about the same. Urban and built-up areas, part of the "Other" category,
have raised the "Other" total to 55,000 acres now. Much of what the 1951
classification called "Range" was called "Pasture" in the 1958 inventory, and
it is difficult to work out just what has happened to it. Some is apparently
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in "Cropland" and has moved into the "Irrigated" category..
THE SITUATION ON FOREST LAND AND IN FOREST PRODUCTS
The allowable cut on the limpqua National Forest is 380,000,000 board-
feet annually, of which 20,000,000 board-feet are in thinnings and salvage.
The present cutting rate is at this allowable level. Within the next 20
years the allowable cut will increase about 25 percent; most of the gain
being from thinnings, better utilization, and better access that will permit
more efficient salvage. The major private forest owners are all big companies
that are in business on a sustained yield basis. The other big forest
holding is in Bureau of Land Management hands; it has an allowable cut of
close to 200,000,000 board-feet and is now at that level. No increase is
expected.
Since 1948 the total timber cut for Douglas County has been above one
billion board-feet each year, reaching a peak in 1956, and dropping to about
one and a quarter billion board-feet by 1961. Even this represents an over-
cut; the sustained yield on a present use basis is estimated at about three-
quarters billion board-feet. As will the allowable cut on the National
Forest, this will increase about 25 percent within the next 20 years.
Unfortunately, the present saw-milling capacity in Douglas County is
double the sustained yield of the forest. In the past five or six years
many small operators have gone out of business; only a quarter of those are
left that were working in the 1951-54 period. Competition will eventually
force out all the mills that must rely entirely on government timber. How-
ever, a pulp mill may be expected to be located in the county within the
next twenty years; many of the private companies are already producing chips
for pulp. The mill probably will be near Winchester on the North Umpqua, or
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on the main river down below the junction of the North and South Umpqua.
The market for the hardwoods found principally in the foothills
(Including madrone, tan oak, black oak, maple and alder) is improving; more
are going both to pulp and to lumber. There will be an increase in small
turnery for the production of handles, etc.
There is, surprisingly enough, a possibility for a pulp mill in the
uppermost part of the watershed, at 4,500 feet elevation near Lemolo Lake at
the head of the North Umpqua River. California - Oregon Power Company is
producing electric power there now. There is a large supply of high quality
water available from big springs in the vicinity. There are 20,000 acres
of lodgepole pine and mountain hemlock and white fir in the immediate sur-
rounding area as a source of chips. A new all-year highway serves the area.
Pumice beds fifty feet deep blanket the area (it is not far north of Crater
Lake) and afford a possibility for filtration of waste liquors at some
distance from streams. Full treatment of wastes and removal of excess
nutrients before release would be a necessity, for the North Umpqua is both
an Important salmon and steelhead producing stream and the source of the
water supply for the City of Roseburg. It is likely that this mill will be
installed within fifty years.
So far, no Insect epidemics have required widespread spraying for con-
trol. Some herbicides have been applied by aerial spray for brush control;
and it is expected that this will continue. Of the 10,000 acres cut over
each year, perhaps 1,000 need brush control treatment to permit adequate
tree crop regeneration. Most of this work is in the middle and lower parts
of the watershed. Antibiotic sprays are used on young sugar pine plantations
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for blister rust control, but this is done on the ground tree by tree.
Fertilizers have been applied to older plantations in areas of heavy
deer population to put succulent growth on the larger trees and attract the
deer away from the young plantings. Agricultural rates of application, up to
800 pounds per care, have been used; but the total area so treated has been
very small. Fertilizer application is not expected to become widespread on
forest lands.
Algal blooms have occurred in Diamond Lake at the head of the watershed
since before recreational development of the area. Nutrients causing the
blooms are believed to come from the swamp drainage feeding the lake. The
lake is shallow and warms up readily. The California-Oregon Power Company
also has an algae problem, in its canals from Lemolo Lake where growths may
cut down the flow by 20 percent. The company gains control by shutting off
the flow, drying out the canals, and mechanically brushing off the algae.
There is no evidence that any herbicide that would affect the Rosebiirg water
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supply has ever been used.
The Bureau of Land Management in its lower-lying forest lands uses
aerial seeding of mustard to provide a quick cover-crop on areas subjected to
hard burns. Area so treated each year is small, but continuation of this
soil stabilization and erosion control practice will reduce sediment loads
in streams draining the burns.
Some 1,500 miles of timber access road have already been built on the
Federal lands, and about 4,000 miles more remain to be built. This future
road construction even at best will cause considerable soil and stream
channel disturbance and create sedimentation problems.
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Recreation use of upstream watershed areas is rapidly increasing. At
Diamond Lake, always a popular spot, there were 3,000 boats and 10,000 people
on opening day of trout season 1962. That is one boat and three people per
acre of lake. For the season, the lake had 125,000 visitors, double the load
of five years earlier. It is planned to open up a ski area with a lift near
Mt. Bailey just west of Diamond Lake, and this will bring in year-round use.
Host of the use would be concentrated in the ski and fishing seasons, December
to February, and May to October. New recreation area developments, including
camp and picnic grounds and swimming holes, are being installed throughout
the basin in anticipation of continued increasing use.
Fisheries appear to be decreasing. Both trout and summer steelhead
populations have dropped very low; but fishing pressure is constantly increas-
ing. How most of the recreation use attracted by the fishery goes to Diamond
Lake, which accounts for about three-quarters of all forest-based recreation.
THE SITUATION OH CROPLAND
Cropland is for this discussion defined to include the range areas which
are a basic part of the agriculture of the basin and which are, to some degree,
in a state of interchange with land cultivated for crops.
Douglas County has more animal unit months of grazing than any other
county in the state. But though livestock numbers are increasing, the human
population is decreasing, there being about 1,000 fewer people in 1962 than
recorded in the 1960 census. Farm units are becoming larger.
The 1962 irrigated area is a little over 14,000 acres; about as much
as can be irrigated without supplemental storage to make additional water
available. Water rights are already over-appropriated on every tributary;
waters of the South Umpqua River are over-appropriated about 25 times. These
many appropriations are for mining, industry, irrigation and domestic use;
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and fortunately are applied at different seasons.
Potential pasture or range area amounts to about 500,000 acres; to
reach this potential would mean converting a little marginal cropland and a
lot of grazed forest range. The forest that would be converted is woodland
savanna with white oak and madrone (and occasionally some yellow pine) tree
cover And brush and grass understory. In the conversion process the forest
and brush are cut down and burned, arsenical stumpkillers are applied to the
hardwoods, 2-4-5-T spray is applied to the brush, a cover crop with limited
fertilization is put in, and in the second year there is complete cultivation,
heavy fertilization, seeding to pasture grasses and legumes, and irrigation.
Fertilization includes addition of 5,000 pounds of limestone or equivalent
per acre every five years; and a minimum of 300 pounds of 16:20 N-P formula-
tion each year. A net of 40 pounds N and 60 pounds P, and some K is needed
per acre, dry or irrigated. The use of single superphosphate has increased
five times in the last ten years. Very little nutrient leaching occurs as
there is little or no return flow from irrigation and surface erosion is
greatly reduced under proper pasture management. Most of this development will
take place on the lower hills and valley edges; any problems from nutrients
or toxins moving from treated areas will develop in the middle and lower courses
of the tributaries.
The livestock industry will show a large increase as the pasture con-
versions are made; and the conversions are being made at about 15,000 acres
a year. However, some of what is at present the best pasture land will likely
be converted to more intensive use for beans and row crops. Floodplain areas
south of Ros.eburg are already used for high-value intensively farmed truck
crops; even rural zoning is not likely to change this pattern, though it may
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prevent residential build-up in flood hazard areas. Cropland is being lost
to roads (about 2,000 acres in Douglas County in recent years) and to suburban
residential development along roads and along streams.
Expansion of irrigated area requires either application of less water
per acre, or the development of more water supply. Several water storage
projects are being studied; altogether they could furnish water to irrigate
about three times the present 14,000 acres irrigated. Reservoir storage pro-
jects will also help meet expanding recreation demands.
Irrigation use averages 18 to 20 inches depth each year, though alfalfa
for pasture will use up to 30 inches. Grass on sprinkler irrigated pasture
and most crops need about 18 inches to assure reasonable yields. With the
increasing development of improved pasture will come irrigation water manage-
ment with more efficient sprinkler applications timed according to the require-
ments of the soil.
POLLUTION PROBLEMS AM) FORECASTS
Bean acreage is now increasing in the Roseburg area, and the crop goes
to Springfield for processing. As the flood control and irrigation projects
are installed, there will be more bottomland put to irrigated, intensively
farmed cannery crops. Within 50 years we may expect vegetable processing
industry to be established at or near Roseburg, probably on the South Umpqua.
Within 25 years we may expect a meat-processing plant, attracted by the rapid
expansion of the livestock industry. These will present additional waste dis-
posal problems and water pollution hazards.
Urban and suburban expansion will continue, stimulated both by the
above-mentioned industrial developments and by the northward movement of
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people who find California too crowded. Because of the lumber industry
Roseburg is a high wage area, and this attracts people too. One of the
"community colleges" is expected to be established there in the near future,
add this will require additional urban development. All this adds up to
greatly increased domestic sewage and garbage loads to be disposed of.
Frontage lots along the river are being developed for permanent residence;
because of peculiarities of soil structure, the septic tanks serving the de-
velopments discharge rapidly to the river and are creating a serious pollu-
tion problem both in the river and by contaminating the groundwater tapped by
wells for domestic supply.
There are no irrigation return flow drains, and consequently no signifi-
cant return flow problems as yet. However, where tile drains are installed -
and more can be expected - the rapid removal of water from levels near the
soil surface certainly presents a real hazard of rapid removal of fertilizers
and pesticides that may be added to soil or crop under irrigation.
Mineral potential of Douglas County is fairly high. A large nickel mine
is now in operation at Riddle on Cow Creek. There are quicksilver mines -
now inactive - in the Calapooya drainage. Several properties that have been
worked in times past contain sulfide deposits of gold, silver, copper, and zinc.
There .are several chromite deposits, some of which have recently been worked.
Subbltuminous coal beds and some sulfur deposits also occur in various places.
With increasing demand, we may expect more of these minerals to be exploited;
and the process will develop some waste disposal problems and some serious
stream pollution hazards. Host of these developments are high up in the
watersheds; the pollution load would be injected near the heads of the
streams.
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As indicated in previous sections, the only forest-based industry ex-
pected to enter that would have an impact on water pollution is a pulp mill.
There will very probably soon be a mill somewhere in the basin to take ad-
vantage of the pulpwood afforded by thinnings and better waste utilization.
This mill will have wastes that may present a serious pollution hazard if
their disposal is not carefully planned in advance.
Timber access road construction and logging operations will continue to
put sediment into streams; but the load should gradually lessen as con-
struction and logging practices are improved. This sediment load will be
added in the upper reaches of the affected streams.
Outdoor recreation will increase rapidly; it will bring domestic
sewage and garbage disposal problems to upstream watershed areas, with
attendant water pollution hazards. There will also be increased hazard of
oil and gasoline contamination of streams and lakes as boating use increases.
Increased personal contact with the water by swimmers and boaters and water
skiers and fishermen, will increase hazards of bacterial pollution. Again,
much of the pollution load will be added in the upper reaches of the streams.
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