The men known around the state capitol as Ryan Beckley’s errand boys, Douglas County elected officials Representative Virgle Osborne, Senator David Brock Smith, and Representative Court Boice have sponsored House Bill 3728—a plan to spend an estimated $800 million to one billion dollars of Oregon TAXPAYERS MONEY to rebuild the obsolete and derelict Winchester Dam and it’s worst-in-the-state fish ladder, and to install new hydroelectric generators.
While taxpayers will have to pick up the tab for the new dam infrastructure, HB 3728 predictably makes no provision to remove the private water ski lake behind the dam or open it’s boat ramp open to the public.
The bill, currently under evaluation by the House Committee on Agriculture, Land Use, Natural Resources and Water, directs the Oregon Water Resources Department (OWRD) to submit a report on rebuilding the dam no later than September 15, 2026—over a year from now.
This is called a “delay tactic.”
State agencies presently taking action against the owners of the condemned and uninsurable Winchester Dam will be asked to wait another 16 months until the OWRD report on HB 3728 is finished.
Lawyers representing the WWCD and its President Ryan Beckley in the numerous lawsuits in which he is a defendant, will argue that their cases should not go forward in court until after OWRD has completed its study.
and owner of TerraFirma Foundation Systems
Virgle Osborne ingenuously claims that HB 3728 “is dead,” however the bill itself is very much alive and progressing through committee.
This isn’t the first time Winchester Water Control District (WWCD) tried to dump the monumental liability of the 135-year-old Winchester Dam on the taxpayers.
In 1978, the dam owners wrote a letter to the Douglas County commissioners asking for the county taxpayers to take over maintenance and liability of the condemned and derelict Winchester Dam.
But after reading the rather damning, Oregon Water Resources Department, 1976 report condemning the Winchester Dam, the head of Douglas County Public Works, declined WWCD’s offer, deeming ownership of the crumbling dam too great a liability for the county to even consider.
And this isn’t the first time they’ve tried to re-install hydroelectric generators at Winchester Dam. But Winchester Dam is only 17-feet tall—too high for wild fish to jump but too low for high-capacity electricity production, which requires both flow and hydraulic head. But if the height of the dam is raised for greater capacity, this will raise the level of the lake and lakefront homeowners will lose acreage and, by extension, property value.
Virgle Osborne and Brock Smith know there’s no way WWCD Board of Directors are going to permit any plan that lowers their property values. It’s hard enough to sell a home in the WWCD because of the sizable and mandatory monthly homeowner fees.
Despite the simple facts of physics and capitalism outlined above, Osborne claims that the Trump administration is going to provide federal funds to rebuild the infamous Winchester Dam. This seems extremely unlikely considering Governor Kotek is a woman and Oregon is a sanctuary state.
Despite basic facts of engineering and economics, Osborne’s insistance that that the Trump administration is going to hand over federal funds to rebuild Winchester Dam defies logic.
With Governor Kotek in charge and Portland calling the shots, does anyone really believe this conservative White House is going to funnel billions to a deep-blue, sanctuary-state that defies federal law to defend the rights of illegal immigrants?
Oregon law ORS 553.020 requires all dams to have a public purpose such as electrical generation, flood control, or irrigation. But since 1964, the Winchester Dam hasn’t provided any of these three functions. For six decades the dam’s only purpose has been recreational, as a private waterski lake for a few dozen privileged speedboat-owning homeowners at the exclusion of the public.
But the statute clearly states that a water control district must have a function other than recreation—a law with which the WWCD has never complied.
The existence Winchester Dam is illegal under ORS 553.020 and has been for more than half a century. This is why Orborne devised this bill to benefit his boss, Ryan T. Beckley, and legitimize the WWCD’s illegal water control district.
Readers may be aware that Beckley is the owner of TerraFirma Foundations Systems and President of the WWCD Board of Directors, owners of the condemned dam.
Beckley and TerraFirma are presently defendants in several lawsuits, including a $27.5 million judgement sought by the Oregon Department of Justice for Beckley’s apparent slaughter of more than 550,000 Pacific lamprey—seven generations of wild migratory Native fish—at the Winchester Dam in August 2023.
According to the candidate form Beckley filed with the county when he ran for the Winchester Water Control District Board seat in 2023, he does not have an engineering degree.
According to the form, Beckley left high school in the 11th grade and did not receive a diploma. Additionally, the address Beckley provided on his candidacy form to authenticate his residency within the water control district (a legal requirement for anyone serving on the WWCD Board of Directors) was for a property he reportedly did not own at the time of filing.
As recently as 2010, the WWCD looked at having Coastal Hydropower install 5 turbines along Winchester Dam. At peak river water flow during the winter, the 5 turbines would have produced a combined 2.5 megawatts, enough electricity to power 2,500 homes for 6 months. But during the low river flow summer months, electrical generation would drop to almost zero.
Coastal Hydropower determined in 2010 that the regulatory hurdles and low 17-foot height of Winchester Dam made installation of electrical generation a profitless pursuit.
Moreover, Oregon law ORS 541.386, created in 1980, prohibits construction of any new dams or hydroelectric projects on the Umpqua River from Soda Springs Dam all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
Are Brock Smith and Osborne simply ignoring this law or are unaware if its existence?
More importantly why are Brock Smith and Osborne, Ryan Beckley’s errand boys, asking the Oregon’s Water Resource Department to study adding hydroelectric power to Winchester Dam, when it’s both fiscally irresponsible and clearly prohibited by Oregon law?
Their intention is to foist the cost of rebuilding of an $800 million – one billion hydroelectric dam onto the hard working taxpayers of Oregon, and, in the process, delay the numerous lawsuits in which Ryan Beckley and his TerraFirma Foundation Systems are defendants.
Osborne and Brock Smith will do everything in their power to make sure the taxpayers get stuck footing the bill for the rebuilding of the Winchester Dam, so their buddies in the WWCD won’t have to pay for it—while still maintaining their private water ski lake at the exclusion of the public.
In other words, Osborne must be dreaming if he really thinks Trump’s going to foot the bill for the mess at the Winchester Dam. Rather, his proposed generation of electricity at Winchester Dam is merely a ruse to make the illegally formed water control district that owns the “high hazard” dam into a legal water district.
And HB 3728 is the first legislative step towards that objective.
Osborne and Brock Smith‘s HB 3728 is as unpopular as Brock Smith’s SB 210, a proposal to ask Oregonians to end vote-by-mail elections—and generated so many thousands of letters of opposition, it literally crashed the legislature’s website.
One Oregon senate insider who asked to remain anonymous, commented on HB 3728, “I’d be somewhat surprised if it would be granted a hearing, more surprised if it passed through committee, and flabbergasted if it then passed the House floor. It’s meant to make a political statement, without any expectation that it would pass the legislature.”
Voters in Douglas County are fed up with Ryan Beckley and the WWCD. They don’t appreciate the county’s wealthiest citizens hijacking their very public North Umpqua River—the number one steelhead stream in North America, and some say in the world.
Apparently, citizens in Roseburg are upset with Beckley and his TerraFirma Foundation Systems for their part in trashing the North Umpqua River, the fishery, and the drinking water of 37,000 county residents. This MEME was seen on Facebook this week.
