Last year, the Oregon legislature designated $2.5 million to the Harney Basin Wetlands Collaborative to fund projects for wetlands restoration. All of the projects have the goal of benefiting migratory and resident bird populations as well as assisting landowners with water management.

A healthy snowpack in the Harney Basin benefits not only ranchers and farmers who rely on it to grow hay, but also migrating birds who depend on the flood irrigated wet meadows in the spring as they travel to their northern breeding grounds. Current snowpack numbers put the Harney Basin at a snow water equivalent of 122 percent of normal as of March 3, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.

How does this water journey from the higher mountain elevations surrounding the Harney Basin (uplands) end up in the wet meadows (lowlands) where birds and ranchers benefit? It starts in the Blue Mountains to the north and Steens Mountain to the south.