Committee Chair Senator Jeff Golden
The Oregon Senate Interim Committee on Natural Resources and Wildfire met in Salem on Wednesday, September 9, 2026.
The committee chair, Senator Jeff Golden, a Democrat from Ashland, told the senators about a letter signed by ten conservation and fishing groups that met recently with Governor Tina Kotek, accusing state agencies of glacially delaying implementation of significant repairs and improvements to the Winchester Dam that the self-same state agencies have already ordered.
THE LETTER
The letter decried the Oregon Water Resources Department (OWRD) for failing to enforce the agency’s own orders, stating “Since 2025, elective actions by the Oregon’s dam safety officials have delayed appropriate enforcement advancing necessary repairs at Winchester Dam… We are writing yet again to urge the OWRD and elected leaders to take action to address critical public safety issues at Winchester Dam…
“We note that previously OWRD’s dam safety officials have been responsive to public concerns… [and] have annually assessed the 136-year-old Winchester Dam to be in “poor” condition since at least 2019.
“However, meaningful efforts of dam safety officials to address public safety issues at Winchester Dam appear to have stopped. After a disastrous and failed ‘emergency’ repair at the dam in 2018 and subsequent public outcry, safety officials pursued a number of highly-publicized and welcome enforcement efforts from approximately 2019 until late 2024 regarding public safety associated with Winchester Dam and yet another disastrous and failed 2023 repair at this structure…
“Since 2025, elective actions by the Oregon’s dam safety officials have delayed appropriate enforcement advancing necessary repairs at Winchester Dam. This reversal is irresponsible and unwarranted. It reinforces the longstanding public impression that state officials are unwilling to hold the operators of this dam to the statutory and regulatory standards that similar facilities around the state do have to meet…
“Please consider this letter as formally putting state officials on notice that we believe any further delay in enforcement requiring the timely completion of necessary safety inspections and structural repair designs conducted, evaluated, and stamped by a qualified engineer at Winchester Dam will put people, property, the North Umpqua’s salmon and steelhead runs, and public drinking water supplies at unacceptable risk.”
A 1976 OWRD inspector’s report condemned the Winchester Dam, stating the dam can only be “considered as temporary in nature.” OWRD has rated Winchester Dam a “high hazard,” meaning “the department expects loss of human life if the dam fails.”
And yet, half a century later, the dam has never been brought up to code or replaced. This is why they call it the most dangerous and illegal dam in Oregon.
Senator Jeff Golden admitted, “I think everybody recognizes that the rights of the district who own the dam to litigation tools and defense make this really difficult. But the theme of this letter is that there are things that can be done even so to resolve this.”
Ryan Beckley, President of the WWCD Board of Directors, is the owner of TerraFirma Foundation Repair, a company that is frequently a co-defendant in lawsuits brought by state agencies pertaining to the infamous Winchester Dam on the North Umpqua River.
In August, Beckley’s Terra Firma Foundation Repair filed amended counterclaims against the State of Oregon for at least $80 million alleging a vindictive conspiracy by the state to force WWCD to remove the Winchester Dam.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife called Winchester Dam the worst manmade obstacle to fish on an Oregon River.
Sen. Floyd Prozanski, a Democrat from Eugene who sits on the committee, represented Douglas County, home the Winchester Dam. He said, “Landowners in that area…basically have a private lake to go skiing or whatever else they want to do, and it has decimated the fisheries in that area. And instead of doing the right thing and putting in a fish passage that works and doing things that will co-exist with everyone, they’re continuing to use the legal system–I’m an attorney, I got it, I understand that–to basically delay and delay.”
THE LATEST LAWSUIT
Bryn Hudson, a Senior Policy Advisor with the Oregon Water Resources Department (OWRD) addressed the committee, reporting on the lawsuit (case # 23CV33445) brought against OWRD by Ryan Beckley, president of the Winchester Water Control District, owners of the derelict Winchester Dam on the North Umpqua River.
In November 2022, a coalition of 17 organizations formally requested OWRD conduct a bathymetric survey to confirm that WWCD was illegally storing an extra 91-acre feet about its 1910 water storage rights of 300-acre feet.
Once this illegal water storage was confirmed, OWRD asked WWCD to lower the water level of their private water ski lake behind the derelict Winchester Dam.
But rather than comply, Ryan Beckley asked OWRD to amend WWCD’s 1910 water storage rights from 300-acre feet to 391-acre feet, thereby accommodating the extra 91-acre-feet of water WWCD had illegally stored for decades.
When OWRD refused, Ryan Beckley, filed a lawsuit in Marion County Court against OWRD and, in an apparent attempt to intimidate a state official, named OWRD Water Right Services Division Administrator Dwight French as a defendant.
But once again, Ryan Beckley’s efforts to sue rather than comply backfired.
On June 26, 2026, Marion County Circuit Judge James C. Edmonds ruled in favor of OWRD and against WWCD “on all claims and grounds for relief set forth in [WWCD’s] petition.”
At the September 9, 2026, Oregon Senate Interim Committee on Natural Resources and Wildfire meeting, OWRD’s Senior Policy Advisor Bryn Hudson, told the committee that the Beckley and the WWCD “did not appeal” Judge Edmonds’ decision.
“So, what that means is there are essentially two options in front of the Winchester Water Control District today, in terms of getting in compliance with their surface water registration,” Hudson told the committee.
“Option one is that they may apply for a new storage right to essentially store the remaining water that is not covered under their existing registration [extending] rights to store all of the water that is currently being stored. Water is available in winter months, in that area. That’s a viable option, however given that this would be a new application it would potentially trigger new fish passage requirements, which could likely require updates to the existing fish ladder infrastructure.”
But Ryan Beckley and the WWCD have already sued (and lost) in their effort to delay compliance with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s order that WWCD replace the 80-year-old, dilapidated fish ladder at the Winchester Dam—which is on the wrong side of the river—with a new, state-of-the-art $70 million fish ladder on the opposite bank, by 2030.
Hudson continued, “Option two is to just simply lower the pool to the authorized capacity for storage that is allowed under their surface water registration. There is a chance with that option, that lowering the pool could impact the operation of the existing fish ladder. So, if that option is the one that the district decides to go with, there needs to be coordination with the Department of Fish and Wildlife…”
The extra 91-acre feet of water constitutes 25% more than WWCD’s 300-acre feet allotment, significantly increasing water pressure behind the bent, bowed, and long-ago condemned pressure-treated and creosote-treated lumber dam face.
THE BIGGEST LOSER
In an apparent ongoing pattern of willful and deliberate noncompliance, Ryan Beckley and his attorney Dominic Carollo have repeatedly lost in Oregon courts this year—but nevertheless succeeded in delaying the inevitable.
Meanwhile, fish counts and Winchester Dam steadily diminish while Beckley’s attorney, Dominic Carollo gets rich.
Beckley and Carollo apparently don’t care how many millions of dollars they spend litigating.
This is because Carollo’s reported fee of $500 an hour is paid collectively by the approximately 100 WWCD homeowners, whose residences surround the private water ski lake behind the Winchester Dam—even if they don’t use the lake or own a boat.
Consequently, the monthly homeowners’ fees have grown so exorbitant, no WWCD homeowner has succeeded in selling their property this year—this is an upscale neighborhood where only a few years ago, 10% of the real estate changed hands annually.
When will the WWCD homeowners wake up?
One wonders if they know about the April 1, 2020 letter signed by 17 respected nonprofit organizations, and sent to the Winchester Water Control Board, offering to permanently remove the Winchester Dam “at little or no direct cost to the District” and to “end ongoing harm to fisheries and water quality in the North Umpqua River?”
