Redmond is shifting from a potential legal challenge to a collaborative effort to address groundwater concerns as the Central Oregon Irrigation District moves ahead with plans to pipe 18.5 miles of the Pilot Butte Canal between Bend and Redmond.

The Redmond City Council decided this week not to pursue a legal challenge to the project’s environmental impact statement, instead seeking to work with irrigation districts and other basin partners on a program to replenish groundwater, according to a letter from Mayor Ed Fitch to irrigation district officials.

ShanRae Hawkins, a spokesperson with Central Oregon Irrigation District, confirmed to The Bulletin that there is no legal dispute between the irrigation district and the city.

The proposed approach could involve directing some winter water releases from the Deschutes River to areas where the water could seep into the ground and replenish the aquifer that supplies Redmond and rural residents with drinking water.

The proposal remains in its early stages,…