Buying Land in Wasco County, Oregon

The Dalles: a real water-supply story worth understanding before you buy nearby

The single most important recent land-use story touching Wasco County has nothing to do with zoning maps and everything to do with water. Google has operated data centers in The Dalles since the mid-2000s, and its water consumption there has grown enormously -- enough that the City of The Dalles spent roughly a year fighting a public-records request from The Oregonian/OregonLive before settling and disclosing a decade of usage data. What came out was striking: Google's water use in The Dalles is reported to have roughly quintupled between 2012 and 2025, reaching about 550 million gallons a year, and as of early 2026 the city was actively pursuing additional water rights from Mount Hood National Forest sources to meet growing demand. This is covered in full detail, including the settlement terms and what it means for water planning near The Dalles, on our dedicated Wasco County water page below.

For a land buyer, the practical takeaway is straightforward: water supply and future water-rate planning in and around The Dalles are genuinely live issues shaped by large-scale industrial demand, not a settled, static picture. If a parcel depends on municipal water service from The Dalles, or on a well in the same groundwater system, factor this ongoing story into your due diligence rather than assuming water availability is a non-issue simply because the region sits along the Columbia River.

Two EFU zones for two different kinds of farm ground

Outside The Dalles, Wasco County's rural land is governed by two distinct Exclusive Farm Use zones -- A-1(160) and A-1(40) -- reflecting the county's genuinely varied agricultural base, which spans orchards (Wasco County has a real fruit-growing history along the Columbia), dryland wheat, hay, alfalfa, and livestock grazing. The different numeric designations point to different minimum parcel sizes and, by extension, different assumptions about what scale of operation the zone is built around. A buyer should confirm which EFU zone applies to a specific parcel and what its dwelling-eligibility and land-division standards actually require, rather than assuming any two EFU-zoned Wasco County parcels are interchangeable.

Septic permitting and wildfire recovery

For any parcel not served by municipal sewer, septic permitting in Wasco County runs through North Central Public Health District (NCPHD), which serves as Oregon DEQ's local agent for both Wasco and Sherman counties -- the same regional arrangement covered in this project's Sherman County hub. Separately, Wasco County has published active wildfire-recovery permitting guidance tied to recent fire events, including in the Rowena area -- a reminder that the dry, wind-exposed eastern Columbia River Gorge carries real wildfire risk. If you're evaluating a parcel in a fire-affected or high-risk area, ask the county directly about current rebuild permitting streamlining and any defensible-space or building-material requirements.