After the door closes, it’s not the darkness, but the quiet that strikes me—that and the fact that I’m totally naked, floating on a bed of Epsom salt in a contraption that looks like what would emerge if my bathtub impregnated my washing machine.

I’d rather be in a slope-side hot tub—that’s my idea of relaxation. Instead, I’m in a windowless, seven-and-a-half by four-foot, fiberglass sensory deprivation tank. As such, I’m part of one of the newest trends in wellness and relaxation, dubbed “floating” by its proponents.

At lunchtime on a recent Wednesday afternoon, 20 elementary school children file out the door of the Tumalo Community School and into a mobile trailer with the words, “Child Evangelism Fellowship” emblazoned on its side. After some brief chatter, the students take their seats, dig into their hamburgers and stare expectantly at the adult at the front of the room, who quickly grabs their collective energy and attention by leading them in what has become a familiar song for the group.

At 56, John Regan is starting over—again. Next week he’ll begin another job as a truck driver for a commercial outfit in Bend.

For now he’s living in the back of his van. An electrician by trade, Regan hasn’t done any electrical work since the housing market flamed out four years ago. Like other some unemployed workers in Bend, Regan isn’t sure when he’ll have a proper roof over his head again.

What he does know is that he has a place to go almost every day for a cup of coffee, a bowl of soup and hot sandwich at Family Kitchen, a non-profit meal provider that has stepped up over the past year to meet Bend’s growing need for such services.

The 10 Barrel Brewing Company has just put the finishing touches on its new 50-barrel brewhouse in northeast Bend. It's a big facility with gleaming, polished steel tanks and just the latest in a series of recent expansions of the booming industry. Next on deck is a new Boneyard Beer brewhouse up the street from 10 Barrel and within the year, at least two more brewhouses are slated to open not far away.

But just as the industry prepares to cement Bend’s standing as a darling in the microbrewing world, city staff are eyeing the goods, too, and preparing to expand an heretofore obscure and sporadically administered sewer fee to breweries across the city. Breweries aren’t the only industry likely to be hit with the charge, which could generate $2 to $3 million a year for the city and is based on the concentration of waste dumped into the sewer system by commercial businesses. But of the potentially affected businesses, breweries will take some of the biggest hits.

Its no secret that irrigation withdrawals have a major impact on stream flows in the Deschutes Basin. From Wickiup Reservoir in the pine forested Cascade foothills south of Bend to the Juniper dotted canyons outside Terrebonne, the rise and fall of the river is dictated less by snow and rain than the opening and closing of steel gates that meter out water to the legions of farmers on the High Desert.

Over the past decade, irrigators, conservation groups, cities and other stakeholders have made major strides in restoring some of the diminished flows. This past summer, flows in the middle Deschutes were as much as four times the summer average recorded for much of the 20^th century when water-thirsty crops and inefficient irrigation methods left little for the river. Much of that restored flow has come as the result of piping projects that allow irrigators to leave some of their conserved water in the river without curtailing their own usage.