Oregon lawmakers punt on bill to prohibit new livestock farms in state’s most polluted areas

By Alejandro Figueroa | OPB | April 9, 2025

The biggest livestock farms could have been prohibited from building new or bigger facilities in some of Oregon’s most polluted groundwater regions under a state legislative bill environmental groups were backing. But it won’t happen this year.

The bill won’t make it to the legislative floor, following a contentious hearing in Salem.

For years, many residents living in the Lower Umatilla Basin in Eastern Oregon have demanded the state government rein in the sources of pollution that have caused a decades-long nitrates crisis in the area, primarily by nitrates from irrigated agriculture and nearby food processing facilities.

That area sits on what’s known as a Groundwater Management Area — designated by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality because of elevated levels of nitrate pollution in groundwater. There’s another area with such designation in the southern Willamette Valley and one in northern Malheur County.