“Oregon Health Authority slow to help thousands in northeast Oregon with polluted drinking water”

January 17, 2023 Jean B Font

By Alex Baumhardt | Oregon Capital Chronicle | January 17, 2023

Morrow County residents meet with Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley about nitrate contamination in their water. They hold up signs showing the nitrate levels in their water. A report from the Secretary of State’s Office found Oregon agencies in charge of ensuring water quality and quantity are understaffed, underfunded and lack coordination and planning for the future, compromising the state’s water security. (Courtesy of Oregon Rural Action)

Three years ago, eight environmental groups asked the federal Environmental Protection Agency to do something about nitrate contamination in drinking water in northeast Oregon. In a Jan. 16, 2020 petition, they said that for more than 30 years the state had failed to stop nitrate pollution from farm fertilizers, animal manure and industrial wastewater from polluting an aquifer that thousands of people in Morrow and Umatilla counties depend on for drinking water. “Oregon officials have effectively abandoned their responsibility to protect Oregon’s citizens,” they wrote in the 32-page document. Today, little has changed for these residents, many of whom are low-income and Latino. Hundreds have contaminated wells with water unsafe to drink while the lead state agency assigned to fixing the issue, the Oregon Health Authority, has been slow to act.