BOARDMAN — Farmland between Boardman and Hermiston is growing into its potential thanks to the completion of a long-awaited water project in May.

The $34 million West Project, operated by the Columbia Improvement District, is piping Columbia River water to farmland in critical groundwater areas.

“I don’t have final numbers, since we’re still pumping, but I do know the district delivered more water than it ever has,” said Jake Madison, a Columbia Improvement District board member and president of Madison Ranches outside Echo.

Madison said the West Project’s completion resulted in the growth of high-value crops, such as onions and potatoes, on thousands of acres that have not been able to support such crops in the past. He expects to see even more growth next year.

“The West Project, I don’t think, has reached its full potential as far as its impact, because the first year, everyone was nervous — is it going to be done on time?” he said.

On May 5, 2020, the irrigation district successfully tested the new system for the first time, delivering 195,000 gallons of water per minute across 30 miles. The district stated at the time that it expected the project to put about 30,000 acres back into production.

Madison said he could think of at least five new positions that Madison Ranches added in anticipation of the extra water, and said other affected farms have been able to add jobs as well.

The West Project is one of three pipeline projects in Umatilla and Morrow counties that, all together, the Northeast Oregon Water Association says could generate as much as $600 million in economic activity across the agricultural sector. The second project, known as the East Project, is nearing completion.

Madison called the projects a “once-in-a-generation” event.

Large swaths of the farmland affected had been irrigated in the past, but was reduced to far less profitable dryland options by the Oregon Water Resources Department as it designated several critical groundwater areas in the region between the 1970s and 1990s, in response to dwindling groundwater supplies.

The designations came with restrictions on how much water could be pumped out of the ground, and the other option — water from the Columbia River — is so heavily regulated that it took farmers, legislators and organizations, such as the Northeast Oregon Water Association, decades of persistent work before it could come to fruition. The water being used is allowed through transferring existing municipal water rights in stream.

J.R. Cook, president of NOWA, said the increase in high-value crops resulting from the West Project is only the beginning of what the three-pipeline project will accomplish. Another prong of the operation is an aquifer recharge program that hopes to replenish groundwater supplies in those critical areas. Cook said he looks forward to starting to get groundwater testing results and being able to look at the critical groundwater problem holistically.

“These projects have been a cornerstone to our efforts, but by no means are we done,” he said. “This is a one- to two-decade exercise.”

He and Madison both said they were grateful to the legislature for the funding it has provided to assist in the projects, and for all those who have worked to help them come to pass. Even after clearing all of the regulatory, legal and finance hurdles, Cook said construction of the West Project also met with challenges such as shipping delays.

Still, everyone pressed forward to bring the first step in that decades-long dream to life.

“It shows quite a bit of resilience and resolve from the (Columbia) Basin,” Cook said. “I’m really proud of the group that I work with.”