“Three Decades of Well Water Pollution in Rural Oregon Sees Almost No Government Action”

March 29, 2023 Oregon Rural Action

By Claire Carlson | The Daily Yonder | March 29, 2023

A crowd of volunteers gathered at the public health office in Boardman, Oregon, early Saturday morning in mid-March, chatting with each other in English and Spanish as they snacked on cookies and coffee, gearing up for the day’s event. Laid out on tables were cardboard boxes filled with plastic vials for the group to take with them as they teamed up in twos and threes to knock on doors in the community, offering free tap water tests to those who answered. The region is home to several large farming and food processing operations that for more than 30 years have been overapplying nitrogen to the soil for use as a fertilizer. The excess nitrogen, which turns into nitrate once it’s applied to soil, has been seeping into the groundwater and contaminating thousands of rural domestic wells. The state of Oregon has done little to prevent it.