PORTLAND, Ore. — For at least 30 years, Oregon officials have known about groundwater contamination in eastern Oregon's Lower Umatilla Basin, affecting residential wells that many families rely upon for drinking, cooking and bathing. Despite that awareness, the problem hasn't gotten any better — and thus far, the response has been limited to stopgap solutions.
Testing in parts of northern Morrow and Umatilla counties consistently show that the groundwater contains harmful levels of nitrates, a byproduct of agricultural and food processing activities that seeps from the surface down into an underground aquifer. Families with wells that tap into the contaminated aquifer tend to be low-income.
Nitrates are known to cause several serious health problems, including cancer, after long-term exposure. They're particularly dangerous for infants; contamination can result in the body's red blood cells struggling to carry oxygen, potentially causing a deadly condition known as "blue baby syndrome."
The Story recently spoke with Casey Sixkiller, regional administrator for the federal Environmental Protection Agency. While Sixkiller said that he's taken a more active role in Morrow and Umatilla counties since his appointment in 2022, he ultimately laid responsibility for meaningful action at the state's doorstep.
That would make the problem one for Leah Feldon, director of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. Her agency has considered the Lower Umatilla Basin a "groundwater management area" since 1990, and later established a committee tasked with reducing nitrate levels.
The Story's Pat Dooris sat down with Feldon for an interview on the contamination problem and DEQ's role in addressing it.
A worsening problem
According to DEQ's own web page for the Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area, also known by the equally unwieldy initials LUBGWMA, the agency has a mission of restoring and improving groundwater quality by decreasing nitrate concentrations to less than 7 milligrams per liter. But for many of those contaminated wells, the state isn't anywhere near meeting that metric — in fact, it's been getting worse over time.
"That's exactly right. That's what our data is showing," Feldon acknowledged. "It's not a good story over the last 30 years of collected data, yeah."
DEQ testing has identified some areas that are within acceptable levels for nitrates, but Feldon knows that's not broadly the case.
"We know that domestic wells are at levels that are not safe for drinking water," she said. "So I would say DEQ's role over this time period has been that sampling, the analysis, we put out annual reports about the contamination levels, we send the results to the domestic well owners so that they are aware, we notify the counties, we notify the legislature. So we've been in the area, we've been doing this. You're right. Things are not improving."
Feldon said that she's visited the area to see it for herself, and she plans to return next month. But to a certain extent, she had a similar justification as Sixkiller and the EPA — the problem isn't entirely within the scope of DEQ's authority, she said.
"DEQ does not have authority over drinking water," Feldon said. "And the really complicated factor with those domestic wells in addition is that, technically, nobody has regulatory authority over the domestic wells themselves. They are private by definition, and so unlike a municipal water system that is required to deliver safe drinking water, those private wells are up to private individuals.
"In Oregon, we know that bacteria, arsenic and nitrates are all issues that the health authority recommends that people test for in those private wells and in this region. And it's a real problem — the nitrate is a real problem and I think that we really need to ... I think the red flag has been raised on the data that we've been producing. I think people are starting to pay attention and say, 'Hey, this is beyond an environmental problem. This is a public health problem.'
"There's people drinking out of these private wells, but nonetheless, what can we do to help improve the conditions of that groundwater and most importantly, even if it's a long-term solution to improve groundwater — which it absolutely is, unfortunately — what do we do today? What do we do in the short-term to ensure that people have access to safe drinking water? And I really appreciate our partners at OHA for stepping in and making sure that we can do that as a state."
Without an agency being able to claim authority over backyard wells, Feldon suggested, there's no one able to step in and spearhead a fix. If that authority did exist, Oregon might actually know where all the wells are, and could have more quickly stopped people from drinking contaminated water. Instead, the state is still compiling a list of contaminated wells and is still trying to warn against using that water.
What is DEQ doing?
Even taking into consideration the problems with jurisdiction, DEQ purports to be part of the solution. For almost three decades, the LUBGWMA Committee has been meeting under the DEQ's direction with the stated goal of finding ways to actually bring down nitrate levels in groundwater. Over that time, the committee has produced two reports — in 1997 and 2020 — with voluntary recommendations on what could be done.
"I think we can look back and say there should have been, you know, maybe more plans coming out of that," Feldon said. "The other thing that I've really begun to recognize is that, the committee has been really acting mostly on their own and a little more separately in terms of the actions that they are looking at and the actions that the state is looking at. And so what I want to do is really bring those together ... I believe that's the intention, is that it is a state advisory group, and so let's look at what are the regulatory mechanisms that we're already doing. The committee is permitted to suggest more regulatory mechanisms for agencies to potentially carry out and so far as you say, it's been voluntary mechanisms."
The committee has also generated accusations in the past that it's sympathetic to the companies that are producing this contamination in the first place. That's because many of its members are either local elected officials or direct representatives of the agricultural and food processing industry.
"We recognized actually a couple years ago that the makeup of the committee may not be conducive to all of the solutions that we're seeking ... and whether it is or isn't conducive to the solution, I believe that the makeup of that committee needs to include people who live in the community and are drinking the water," Feldon said. "I think it needs to also include local health officials and county, you know, seats, tribal folks who want to have a say and learn about what's going on in the area. Again, I think for too long it's been considered an environmental issue, which it certainly is, but it's also a really critical public health issue, and the more voices that we can have on that committee that are considered the options, the better."
At present, the committee is made up of 11 positions. Two are sourced from the general public, one is from an environmental group and one from Oregon State University. The remainder are either local government officials — including one from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation — or industry representatives.
State reports suggest that farmers are responsible for nearly 70% of the nitrates that contaminate the groundwater near Boardman. Fertilizer, which is the primary source of those nitrates, is unregulated — farmers can use as much of it as they like.
A comparatively small amount of contamination comes from the Port of Morrow, which recently received a $2 million fine from DEQ for a series of permit violations after dumping too much nitrate-laden wastewater onto farm fields.
Feldon said that the Port of Morrow has expanded significantly in the last 15 years, and they first violated their permit in 2010. They've since received four penalties from DEQ — with the most recent being among the three highest penalties the agency has ever issued.
In essence, Feldon said, the port is operating a wastewater treatment system that isn't actually treating the water. But the DEQ isn't stopping them from spreading that wastewater — which is legal, Feldon stressed — only limiting the amount the Port of Morrow can spread.
DEQ will eventually prohibit the port from spreading wastewater during winter, when there are few crops to actually make use of fertilizer, but they have one more winter in which they'll be allowed to spread it.
The reason why DEQ has allowed the Port of Morrow to continue its irrigation despite those multiple permit violations and the impact of nitrates on residential wells, Feldon explained, is simple — the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
"If they stop all of their land application tomorrow, those wells are not clean. That drinking water is not really any better," she said. "So to me, we have a lose-lose proposition. If the port is shut down or prohibited from taking food process water because we impact the food processors, my understanding is half the people in that region are employed directly or indirectly by the port, the food processors and the farmers that produce the food, so the lose-lose there is that we impact jobs and we do not improve groundwater. We do not improve drinking water.
"I want to win-win in this area. The win-win is that people are drinking safe water, healthy water and that we work with the port on sustainable solutions that we require that they put in sustainable treatment and infrastructure systems that they have never had before. So that's what I'm working toward. And right now we have the ability to provide people with that safe drinking water through OHA, and we're committed to continuing that program."
Feldon said that her agency has been working with the port on a plan to build in water treatment, increase lagoon storage and target low-risk acres for land application of wastewater.
Where are the solutions?
To actually solve the nitrate contamination problem, Feldon said, would require the waving of a magic wand. No such wand has been forthcoming.
"There's not one that I can see. If I saw it, I would make it happen — I really would," she said. "But I'll tell you what I see is the short and medium and long-term plan that I think is what's necessary. The short-term absolutely is maintaining free access to sampling, testing and drinking water for anyone in the region who needs it and wants it. That's got to be number one. That short-term is happening right now and that's going to continue."
In the long-term, Feldon continued, it's going to require cooperation from multiple agencies at several levels of government to identify long-term sustainable solutions to groundwater contamination. But that will require decades of sustained effort.
"The medium-term piece that I am really looking forward to exploring with the counties is how do we use the data we've collected now at these different households and look at what kind of infrastructure could we put in that would get some folks off of these wells entirely," Feldon said, "just to remove that possibility of, 'Is it contaminated now, is it not having that change over time' and the counties are working on that, they do have planners who are looking at the data, and that's a collaborative effort again amongst all of us to say where can we put in some infrastructure, which neighborhoods could be connected to city drinking water that is treated, where are there opportunities for neighborhoods to have their own community system, where are those places that those two opportunities are not available. And perhaps we need to look at a better well that accesses deeper waters that are safe."
Feldon said she's looking forward to continuing this conversation in the Lower Umatilla Basin with the community and other interested parties.
"The more that we talk about the issues that we're having there, I believe the more good ideas we can get and the more people we can get involved to help," she said.