Why is eastern Oregon’s groundwater contamination crisis still unresolved after 30 years? [Video]

Authorities in Oregon have known for over three decades that groundwater in the eastern part of the state, a rural region where many people rely on domestic wells for drinking water, is contaminated with high levels of nitrate and unsafe to drink – yet have done little to address the problem.

Research has linked high nitrate consumption over long periods to stomach, bladder and intestinal cancers, miscarriages, as well as thyroid issues. But until recently, many people in the region had no idea they had been drinking contaminated water for years. Some still don’t know it because the state has, thus far, only tested about half the domestic wells that are impacted, despite a 2023 deadline to finish the testing.

State regulators also have done little to reign in the sources of pollution. Much of the nitrate comes from the massive amounts of farm fertilizer, animal manure and wastewater which are constantly applied to the fields in the region. And the polluters – owners of large swaths of irrigated farmland, confined animal feeding operations (CAFO’s), animal pastures and food processing facilities – are also the agricultural region’s biggest employers and its economic engines.

Thirty years ago, Oregon declared the basin a groundwater management area in northern Morrow County and western Umatilla County. It also tasked a volunteer committee – which includes the very polluters who are causing the problem – to come up with voluntary measures to address the nitrate problem. But those measures are yet to be effective; recent testing has shown that the contamination has gotten worse.

Regulatory action has been nonexistent until two years ago. In 2022, the state Department of Environmental Quality for the first time fined the Port of Morrow – which spreads wastewater on fields in the region – $1.2 million for over 1,000 permit violations. It later raised the fine to over $2 million. And earlier this year, the agency again fined the port for more than 800 violations of the permit.

Kristin Anderson Ostrom, the executive director of Oregon Rural Action, and Kaleb Lay, the group’s director of policy and research, talked on Beat Check about why the contamination has taken so long to address, what can be done about it short and long-term and what the crisis says about Oregon’s approach to environmental justice. The eastern Oregon nonprofit has been instrumental in testing domestic wells in the region and pushing the state to do more testing and to limit pollution.

In May and again earlier this month, Oregon Rural Action and three dozen other nonprofits sent a letter to Governor Tina Kotek asking her to make good on her promises, declare a public health emergency, find a permanent source of water for those forced to rely on bottled water and take action to reduce the nitrate released into the groundwater. Kotek had visited the region after becoming governor.

The letter called the nitrate contamination in the Lower Umatilla Basin “among the most pressing environmental justice issues in Oregon.” Most of the population in the region is poor, Latino or Indigenous.

“The gap in time, the trust that could have been built… it is faltering. People are wondering once again whether they are being left out as rural communities and not being heard,” Ostrom said.

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