Overview
GID was formed in 1997 as an irrigation district under ORS 545, a local government. Total acreage in the district is about 13,000, of which about 11,000 is irrigable. The district signed a contract with the Bureau of Reclamation for the delivery of stored water from the Willamette Basin Project in October of 2007. In any one year, the district will irrigate about 7,000 acres south of Corvallis, Oregon.
The district serves about 50 members, ranging in size from a large, diversified family farm to a member with a few acres of blueberries. In the middle, we have a half dozen farming operations in the 400 to 2,000 acre size, and several family owned farms up to several hundred acres that are leased to the active farming operations.
Infrastructure consists of buried pipelines and a pump station on the Willamette River. Pipelines are very efficient, and do not have the large losses of water that are associated with canals through leakage and evaporation. On farm infrastructure is generally equally efficient, comprised mostly of automated linear and pivot irrigation systems.
Grass seed is the primary crop among our members for the past several years. Other crops include sweet corn, white clover, wheat, hay, squash, spinach and blueberries. Use of irrigation will increase the diversity of crops and crop rotations will become more sustainable. Members are looking forward to producing crops with a more local focus.
