Overwhelmed by Lawsuits, TerraFirma’s Ryan Beckley is a Desperate Man

Ryan Beckley, president of the Winchester Water Control District Board of Directors—owners of the infamous Winchester Dam on the North Umpqua River—and owner of TerraFirma Foundation Systems, is a desperate man.

And desperate people do desperate things.

Up to his neck in lawsuits and grasping at straws, Beckley recently pursued a common ploy of the rich and privileged, threatening his critics with an unfounded and baseless defamation lawsuit to silence public discourse about the condemned and uninsurable Winchester Dam—widely recognized as the most dangerous and illegal dam in Oregon.

To this end, Beckley recently engaged the services of a Lake Oswego attorney named Michael Wise who, according to his website, apparently has as little experience in defamation lawsuits as Beckley has in dam repair. 

In April 2025, Wise (or one of his employees) sent a cease and desist letter to a reporter claiming, “Mr Beckley and TerraFirma have provided to us public, inflammatory, false, and malicious defamatory statements, made by you which is caused significant and personal harm to Mr. Beckley, Mr. Beckley’s reputation, and the professional reputation of TerraFirma.”

The letter states “unless you immediately cease all such communications, I will be forced to advise Mr. Beckley and TerraFirma to pursue all legal options available to them, including, but not limited to, pursuing causes of action for liable, slander, or both to suggest compensation for the damages suffered.” 

Readers will recognize that Wise’s letter is merely performative because he conspicuously failed to provide any evidence of the alleged “public, inflammatory, false, and malicious defamatory statements.”

Ryan Beckley is familiar to readers as the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (ODFW) reigning fish kill champion. During the so-called “repairs” of the Winchester Dam in August 2023, Beckley completely blocked fish passage for more than a month during a sweltering August heatwave.

According to ODFW, this killed seven generations of Pacific lamprey (more than 550,000 individuals) a wild migratory native fish found in the North Umpqua River. ODFW and the Oregon Department of Justice are presently suing Beckley, the Winchester Water Control District, and their contractors for $27.5 million for what ODFW’s Deputy Director for Fish and Wildlife Programs Shawn Clements affirmed was the biggest fish kill on an Oregon river in 2023.

This may be why Ryan Beckley is driven to acts of desperation. However Beckley and his attorney seem to be unfamiliar with Oregon’s laws pertaining to defamation.

1.  Chiefly, Beckley has no defamation claim if the alleged “defamatory statement” is, in fact, true. Truth is a complete defense against defamation. And Beckley’s apparent ongoing violations of state laws and federal regulations, combined with the numerous lawsuits in which he is presently a defendant, make it easy to report on his numerous misdeeds without ever straying from documented evidence.

In fact, in August of 2023, Beckley produced a self-promotion video shot at the Winchester Dam “repair” site, documenting a laundry list of egregious permit violations which he then posted to the Facebook site Roseburg Tracker for all the world to see.

2.  In Oregon, the statute of limitations for a defamation claim, including libel and slander, is one year from the date of the defamatory communication ORS 12.120(2). This means Beckley had one year from the date when the statement was first published or sent, to file a lawsuit.

3.  Beckley’s attorney seems to have forgotten that Ryan Beckley was elected to the Winchester Water Control District Board on a county ballot, making Beckley, in the eyes of the courts, a “public official.” In Oregon, a “public official” is defined in ORS 244.020(14) “as any person who is serving the State of Oregon or any of its political subdivisions or any other public body as defined in ORS 174.109 as an elected official, appointed official, employee or agent, irrespective of whether the person is compensated for the services.”

According to his candidate form filed with the county when he ran for the Winchester Water Control District Board, Beckley does not have an engineering degree. According to the form, he left high school at the 11th grade and did not receive diploma.

Anyone elected or appointed to a special district such as the Winchester Water Control District is, by default, a public official. And unlike private individuals, a public official suing for defamation must prove “actual malice” to win the case—requiring the plaintiff to demonstrate that the defendant either knew a statement was false, or published it with reckless disregard for its truth or falsity. The high court established this standard to protect freedom of speech. This means Beckley gave up his ability to throttle criticism when he was elected to the Winchester Water Control District and any reputable Oregon attorney would know that.

4.  So it’s possible that Beckley hired the wrong attorney. Michael T. Wise’s law firm’s website lists the many lawsuits it has won since 2011. But curiously not one of these lawsuits was for defamation, libel or slander. Moreover, defamation law is not even listed under the firms “Areas of Practice.”

5.  Sending a cease-and-desist letter like the one sent by Wise can backfire. Courts frown on attorneys who send such letters when they don’t have a valid claim. Competent attorneys suing for defamation usually include a “draft complaint” and a “preservation of evidence letter” along with their cease-and-desist letter, even if they do not plan to follow through. However, Wise’s letter conspicuously fails to identify the alleged “defamatory statement.”

6. When someone sends a cease-and-desist letter, they can be counter sued in a “declaratory judgment lawsuit.” Such an action would force Beckley to prove he has defamatory evidence which is both within the Statute of Limitations and exceeds the high bar of “actual malice”—evidence Beckley (and TerraFirma) apparently do not posess.

Sending a cease-and-desist letter with the sole intention of intimidating or suppressing free speech can be considered harassment, opening a door for a civil harassment countersuit, particularly if the cease-and-desist letter is excessively aggressive, threatening or contains false claims, all of which can clearly be found in the letter sent by Beckley’s attorney.

If Beckley can’t handle criticism of his performance as a public official, it’s time for him to resign from his position as president of the illegally formed Winchester Water Control District Board of Directors and recuse himself from any further maintenance or “repair” of the Winchester Dam.

Beckley, and his company TerraFirma, and the Winchester Water Control District, are currently facing a number of lawsuits from several state regulatory agencies, including the $27.5 million lawsuit for the unprecedented and massive fish kill incurred during the last time Beckley attempted “repairs” of Winchester Dam in 2023.

Beckley and the Winchester Water Control District are also defendants in a lawsuit in the Multnomah County Court (case #24CV45479) brought by an employee of Guido Construction who was injured on Beckley’s job site at the Winchester Dam during August 2023 “repairs.” According to one witness, the injury resulted from unsafe working conditions.

They’re also defendants in a federal lawsuit on behalf of endangered Coho salmon in the North Umpqua River brought by Steamboaters, WaterWatch of Oregon, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen, Earthjustice, Craig Law Center, and Karl G. Anuta.

Meanwhile, Beckley and the Winchester Water Control District (WWCD) are suing Dwight French, Water Right Services Division Administrator of the Oregon Water Resources Department in Marion County Court (case # 23CV33445). French signed the agency’s order demanding that the WWCD stop illegally storing 91-acre feet of water behind the Winchester Dam in excess of their allotted water rights.

Patrick Markham, the Rupert Murdoch of Douglas County, owns four radio stations and the Roseburg News-Review newspaper. As a courtesy to Beckley, Markham accommodatingly refrains from publishing articles about Beckley’s many lawsuits, going so far as to remove from the newspaper’s website any articles that quote Beckley making statements that can be used against him in a court of law.

Consequently, this website remains among the last remaining bastions of freedom of the press in Douglas County, Oregon, reporting on topics Ryan Beckley doesn’t want you to know about.

Apparently, Beckley manages TerraFirma Foundation Systems with the same recklessness and disregard for safety evidenced in his “repair”work at Winchester Dam.

In 24 months, TerraFirma’s trucking division, headquartered in Roseburg, Oregon, racked up forty-two trucking violations, including nine unsafe driver violations – all reported by the state of Washington (Oregon doesn’t compile this data). Three were driver fitness violations, seven were maintenance violations, and other violations included speeding, uninsured driver, and open container.

• In 2016, the Oregon Construction Contractors Board was forced to take disciplinary actions against TerraFirma for working without a permit.

• In 2018, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fined TerraFirma $6,000 for the carbon monoxide poisoning of one Beckley’s employees.

• In 2018, TerraFirma was cited and fined $9,620 by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for a motor vehicle safety violation.

• In 2019, OSHA fined TerraFirma $420 for safety violations deemed “serious” during a routine inspection of their Tigard, Oregon, office.

A quick search for online reviews of TerraFirma are not encouraging:

Similarly, complaints against TerraFirma with the Better Business Bureau leave much to be desired:

George Orwell, the author of 1984 and Animal Farm once wrote, “Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.” 

Thank you for continuing to support freedom of the press here in media-blackout ridden Douglas County, Oregon, by making a donation to keep this website, a crucial voice of the opposition, in business.

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