On Wednesday, June 8, 2026, the trial begins in the Marion County Court for a lawsuit brought by the Winchester Water Control District (WWCD), owners of the infamous and condemned Winchester Dam on the North Umpqua River against the Oregon Water Resources Department (OWRD).
OWRD is the state agency charged with dam safety and inspection. In 1976, an OWRD inspector condemned the Winchester Dam, writing “consideration must be given to a permanent dam, the existing wooden dam being considered as temporary in nature…either reconstruction or removal of the dam would be necessary.”
That was half a century ago.
Thirty-two years ago, in 1994, OWRD notified the WWCD that it was illegally storing 91-acre-feet of river water in excess of their 1910 allotted water rights of 300-acre feet. According to Jim McCarthy with WaterWatch of Oregon, “this amount of water translates into approximately 1.1 feet of damn reservoir elevation.”
Yet in the ensuing three decades, OWRD and WWCD took no action to mitigate the illegal water storage issue, despite the added pressure it created behind the bent and bowed 450-foot-wide dam which OWRD itself rated a “high hazard,” meaning they expect “loss of life” when the dam fails.
OWRD hired West Consultants to produce a study that affirmed that WWCD was, in fact, storing 91-acre-feet of river water in excess of their 1910 allotted water rights of 300-acre feet.
But rather than comply with OWRD request, WWCD filed a 2023 lawsuit against Dwight French, the Water Right Services Division Administrator at OWRD, in a desperate effort to keep the dangerous and illegal private water ski lake behind the dam.
The Winchester Water Control District (WWCD) represents about 100 homeowners who collectively own the derelict and deadbeat Winchester Dam, and whose homes surround the dam site.
OWRD required that WWCD “inspect the dam on a semiannual basis, once a year with the water drawn down.” But OWRD failed to enforce this requirement, and the dam was only dewatered and inspected four times in the next 48 years.
In a January 13, 2023, letter OWRD asked the WWCD to pursue one of two options to mitigate the illegal water storage issue in compliance with state regulations:
“(1) lower the depth of the Winchester Dam impoundment by over a foot to reduce the impoundment’s volume or (2) submit an application with OWRD for the 91 acre-feet of additional storage that is not expressly recognized by the surface, water registration statement.”
But rather than comply with this seemingly reasonable request, WWCD’s attorney Dominic M. Carollo responded by filing an August 17, 2023, lawsuit in Marion County Court in Salem, Oregon, suing OWRD and its Water Right Services Division Administrator Dwight French.
The lawsuit attempts to “overturn the straightforward application of state water law, and carve out a special rules exemption for Winchester Dam owners.”
In the lawsuit, case # 23CV33445, filed in Marion County, the WWCD cites Oregon Revised Statute (ORS) 539.010, which states, “The application of water to a beneficial use prior to February 24, 1909 creates a vested water right in the appropriator, and the quantity of water actually applied to a beneficial use.”
In other words, WWCD claims that the illegal water storage was not created by the WWCD but rather that they unwittingly inherited the illegally stored river water in 1969, when they took over responsibility and ownership of the condemned Winchester Dam from Pacific Power.
WWCD argues that because OWRD took no action for 30 years, it defies existing precedent for OWRD to force WWCD to comply at this time.
On September 25, 2023, WWCD filed an Amended Petition for Judicial Review stating that OWRD’s denial of WWCDs requested amendment to their water rights (and late filing of the illegally stored 91 acre-feet of river water) constituted a “final order” that “threatens to deprive or interfere with the petitioners right to utilize the full volume of water in pounded behind Winchester dam, which has remained largely unchanged since the damage modified in 1908, and which was intended to be protected under SW398.”
The WWCD, in an apparent overwhelming sense of entitlement, claims that because they inherited a dam with more water stored behind it than their water rights allowed, they want a special exemption from compliance with laws that are enforced at every other dam in Oregon.
WWCD’s claims that “OWRD does not have regulatory authority over claims based on either pre-1909 or federal reserve water rights theories and left such claims are adjudicated and Findings of Fact and Order of Determination is Entered.”
Although the WWCD is not willing to spend the money to bring the dangerous dam into compliance, they’re perfectly willing to spend $500 an hour on lawyers to hold onto their private water ski lake.
Like a driver arrested for their 19th DUI, the WWCD is a repeat offender.
The WWCD has a long and well-documented history of decades of chronic noncompliance with state agencies:
• Multiple violations of state and federal permits.
• Repeatedly contaminating the drinking water of 37,700 citizens of Roseburg.
• Record-breaking fish kills—more than 500,000 wild migratory native fish in 2023.
Ironically, an Oregon law already exists to prevent repeat offenders like the WWCD from operating dams that do not benefit the public and only serve an elite private group.
ORS 553.020 clearly states that water control districts like the WWCD must provide a public purpose other than recreation, such as hydroelectricity, irrigation, or flood control.
But the Winchester Dam provides no electricity, no flood control, and no irrigation. The truth is, it’s only function—since 1969—is as a mile and a half private waterski lake for a few dozen boat-owning residents whose property surround the dam, at the exclusion of the public.
Yet even though the WWCD is apparently guilty of storing more water than their legal allotment, instead of enforcing ORS 553.020, OWRD has inexplicably allowed the WWCD its private water ski lake to exist for 57 precedent-setting years.
The trial begins on Wednesday, June 8, 2026, in the Marion County Court with Judge James C. Edmonds presiding.
