State Representtive Virgle Osborne
Around Oregon’s state capitol, House District 2 Representative Virgle Osborne is known as “Ryan Beckley’s errand boy.” Beckley is the president of the Winchester Water Control District (WWCD) Board of Directors, and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife “Fish Kill Champion of 2023,” for his botched repair of the condemned Winchester Dam.
At Beckley’s behest, Rep. Osborne announced on Wednesday, February 19, 2025, that he would introduce legislation for a taxpayer funded study to rebuild the condemned 135-year-old Winchester Dam and its worst-in-the-state, fish-killing fish ladder. The bill would allow Beckley and the WWCD to delay bringing the dam into compliance with state agency orders.
Osborne presumes Oregonians aren’t smart enough to understand why the Winchester Dam’s only function is as a private water ski lake for a few dozen speedboat-owning homeowners in the Winchester Water Control District (WWCD).
The 17-foot dam isn’t tall enough for high-capacity electricity production, which requires both flow and hydraulic head. But if they raise the height of the dam for greater capacity, lakefront homeowners lose acreage and, by extension, property value. So Osborne’s plan is pie in the sky.
During the Second World War, as the population of Roseburg grew and the demand for electricity increased, the low-capacity Winchester Dam hydroelectric power plant on the North Umpqua River was no longer profitable.
In 1948, the Toketee Powerhouse, the first of the eight dams in the new North Umpqua Hydroelectric Project, was erected sixty miles upstream from the Winchester Dam. Although the Winchester Dam power plant, continued to operate, it was obsolete by the 1950s. The plant was destroyed in the 1964 flood and never rebuilt. For six decades the dam’s only function has been as private water ski lake from which the public is excluded.
There are more than 90,000 dams in the United States and most, like Winchester Dam, are more than 50 years old and sorely in need of a major retrofit. Hydroelectric dams only provide 6% of electricity in the U.S. Removing harmful and dangerous dams like Winchester Dam restores water quality, fish populations, and, through fishing tourism, local economies.
Readers should be advised that a new dam, power plant, and fish ladder will easily cost hundreds of millions of dollars. At time of publication, the Trump Administration could not verify Rep. Osborne’s assertion that they will pay for its construction. All that Beckley and Osborne care is that it’s paid for by taxpayers and not the WWCD, the owners of the most dangerous and illegal dam in Oregon.
Rep. Osborne is apparently confident his constituents don’t know why the uninsurable Winchester Dam failed as a hydroelectric producer and that his proposal to build hydroelectric dams on the Umpqua River is a financial sinkhole that will cost Oregon taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and never pay for itself.
The bill calls for yet another study. How many hundreds of thousands of dollars will this cost Oregon taxpayers? Plenty, you may be certain.
Osborne posted the following on his Facebook page on February 19, 2025:
“Today I have created an LC [draft of a legislative bill] that will help with the long argument about the necessity of the Winchester Dam.
“I don’t think there is any argument that we all like to go to the fish ladder and view our awesome salmon and steelhead runs. We have also reached a point where personal attacks and conjecture have gotten to a place that is creating more bad than good.
“So… Attached is my idea.
“The environmentalists in the state have long been opponents of any kind of dam on the river. The same folks want to take away rights of the property owners who live above the dam.
“This week I will drop a bill in the Oregon legislature that will solve the problem for all stakeholders!
“This bill will create a fish ladder that is “state of the art”! [sic] while preserving the fish and lamprey habitat above the dam. The dam will generate hydro-electricity [sic] which is considered “Green” energy in our states green energy plan. It will also create a roadmap of future dams and reason to add them and power local municipalities. This will LOWER your power bill since the energy will be local!
“Don’t worry, the fish will be OK. We are specifying a dam, and power station that is 100% fish friendly and will not kill fish or create a false flow to confuse the fish. This will also include a ladder specifically geared for lamprey eels.
“All in, we save our fish, save our property rights and save the money on our electric bills.
“THIS IS A STUDY BILL TO COMPUTE COST. ULTIMATELY, THE COST OF THIS REPLACEMENT AND POWER STATION WOULD BE A FEDERAL PROJECT FUNDED BY THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION, NOT THE LANDOWNERS.
“This fix should once and for all solve the problem for everyone involved!”
But there’s something Rep. Osborne and Ryan Beckley don’t want Oregon taxpayers to know.
On April 1, 2020, a letter was sent to the WWCD Board offering to permanently remove the Winchester Dam “at little or no direct cost to the District [WWCD]” and to “end ongoing harm to fisheries and water quality in the North Umpqua River.”
The letter was signed by the leaders of Steamboaters, North Umpqua Foundation, Umpqua Watersheds, Inc., Umpqua Valley Fly Fishers, Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association, Northwest Guides and Anglers Association, Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman’s Associations, Oregon Wild, Port Orford Sustainable Seafood, Rogue Flyfishers, Pacific Rivers, Native Fish Society, Cascadia Wildlands, American Whitewater, and McKenzie Flyfishers.
It’s a standing offer that WWCD refuses to acknowledge. Why doesn’t Rep. Osborne disclose this salient detail?
As Will Rogers once said “Nothing will upset a state economic condition like a legislature.”
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