State agencies issue Lower Umatilla Basin nitrate reduction plan

SALEM, Ore. (KTVZ) – The State of Oregon, through collaboration between the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, the Oregon Department of Agriculture, the Oregon Water Resources Department and the Oregon Health Authority, released a Nitrate Reduction Plan on Friday to outline the state’s key strategies to reduce groundwater nitrate concentrations to less than seven mg/L in the Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area and protect public health in the immediate term.

While the Nitrate Reduction Plan formalizes the state’s role in this work, successful implementation will require an unprecedented collaborative effort that spans the four state agencies working in cooperation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Morrow County, Umatilla County, city governments, businesses, residents and community groups.

“Earlier this year, Governor Kotek and I had the opportunity to hear directly from residents in the Lower Umatilla Basin impacted by nitrate contamination for decades,” EPA Region 10 Administrator Casey Sixkiller said. “Based on those conversations, Governor Kotek committed to developing a state-led approach that in the near term delivers safe drinking water to residents and in the longer term works to reduce nitrate contamination in the region’s groundwater.

“Today’s announcement makes good on that commitment, and I want to thank the governor for her leadership and the efforts by multiple state agencies over the summer to get us to this point. This effort is a critical next step in ensuring all levels of government are working together to find solutions to address this complex challenge.

“EPA looks forward to continuing to work very closely with the state as they begin to implement and continue to build upon this approach.”

“Early in my administration, I directed state agencies to step up and collaborate on immediate and long-term solutions to address the groundwater contamination in the Lower Umatilla Basin,” Governor Kotek said. “Since then, the state of Oregon has dedicated millions in resources to address this drinking water crisis and has developed a formal plan outlining the state’s role and timelines in supporting remediation and mitigating future deterioration of the groundwater supply. This is a complex problem with no easy solutions – and it will take collaboration amongst all players to see meaningful change in the Basin. The state is committed to this ongoing work.”

“Umatilla County is encouraged to see that the state of Oregon has really stepped up to meet one of the greatest challenges of our region,” Umatilla County Commissioner Dan Dorran said. “Collaboration is key if we want to reduce the concentration of nitrates in our groundwater, and the county is committed to being an active partner in this effort.”

“The Nitrate Reduction Plan is a great example of how the state has devoted new energy into addressing contaminated drinking water in Morrow County,” Morrow County Commissioner Roy Drago Jr. said. “I am grateful to Governor Tina Kotek for directing her administration to address this situation with a greater sense of urgency, while also ensuring that community concerns are not an afterthought.”

“The state’s Nitrate Reduction Plan is a critical step forward in reducing nitrate pollution throughout the Lower Umatilla Basin, and in bringing safe drinking water to the communities and residents in the basin,” Karen Lewotsky, Rural Partnerships & Water Policy Director for Oregon Environmental Council, and a member of the LUBGWMA Committee said. “Success will require sustained commitment from state and local leadership. We will need multi-year, consistent investments in both the long-term strategies identified in the Plan and in ensuring that all residents currently without access to clean drinking water are provided with safe effective solutions to that challenge.”

As the state formalizes and strengthens this interagency collaboration, it is important to emphasize that this contamination accumulated from multiple sources over many years with no simple or quick solutions. Nitrate contamination is a problem for rural communities across Oregon and the entire nation. The most common sources of nitrate contamination are fertilizer, manure, septic systems, and wastewater that travels through soil and into groundwater.

Cleaning up the area’s groundwater nitrate contamination will take decades. The most effective and feasible way to clean up groundwater contamination of this scale is to control the sources of pollutants so that, over time, clean water cycles into the groundwater system, diluting and eventually replacing contaminated water.

Nitrate Reduction Plan Highlights:

• Oregon Department of Agriculture:
  • Agriculture Water Quality (AGWQ) program: Develop new compliance benchmarks to address nitrate levels potentially linked to irrigated agriculture. The process will be collaborative and include partner engagement. The estimated implementation date is 2026.
  • Confined Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO): Strengthen state regulations, including Senate Bill 85, implementing new nutrient application permits for manure exports and update existing CAFO permits to prevent groundwater contamination.
  • Strategic Implementation Areas (SIA): Implement new initiatives to prevent additional nitrate contribution by developing assessment methodologies to understand groundwater and surface water impacts better.
• Department of Environmental Quality:
  • Update and modernize wastewater permits in the LUBGWMA to ensure operations that reuse nitrogen-rich wastewater to irrigate crop fields protect groundwater. DEQ has been updating permit requirements via permit renewals and modifications and will continue to monitor and adapt requirements to ensure operations maintain compliance and minimize potential nitrate leaching.
  • Partner with Umatilla County to regulate septic systems in the area and partner with a nonprofit lender to offer affordable financing options for homeowners to repair or replace failing septic systems.
  • Test a long-term well network of about 30 wells four times each year and complete an updated analysis that tracks nitrate trends over time. The information can inform land use decisions and supplements the site-specific groundwater monitoring and trends analysis that’s required by wastewater permits.
• Oregon Water Resources Department:
  • Expand its inspection program to ensure that new, abandoned, and altered wells in the LUBGWMA are constructed properly to ensure that groundwater resources are protected. Staff will be conducting additional well assessments to develop a better understanding of how well construction and aquifer characteristics may be influencing water quality.
  • Collaborate with Morrow and Umatilla counties to provide technical assistance for the Drinking Water Investigation project which is evaluating opportunities to connect well owners to existing municipal water systems.
  • In collaboration with DEQ and ODA, update the conceptual model for the alluvial aquifer system within the LUBGWMA. The model was last released in 1995 and this update will include new data that has been collected in the three decades since the original report was released.
  • Continue to collect quarterly groundwater level data through OWRD’s well monitoring network. Staff will also look for opportunities and partnerships to expand the network throughout the LUBGWMA.
• Oregon Health Authority:
  • Provide free laboratory tests of domestic well water to LUBGWMA residents, as it has since 2023, and offer re-testing opportunities to ensure well users have safe drinking water.
  • With the Oregon Department of Human Services, continue to provide well users whose water has unsafe levels of nitrate (10 milligrams per liter of water or higher) with free water delivery, and for well users with nitrate test results between 10-25 mg/L, free installation and maintenance of one in-home reverse-osmosis water treatment system.
  • Continue to inform and educate well users about the negative health effects of nitrates in drinking water through direct outreach in collaboration with Morrow and Umatilla County Health Departments and several community partners.
  • Continue to provide data and technical support to Morrow and Umatilla County Planning Departments working to identify options to extend existing or establish new public water systems to provide a more durable source of safe drinking water to LUBGWMA residents.

The full plan can be found here and will be updated to reflect new and changing information, resources, and strategies. To maintain transparency and accountability, the State of Oregon will produce an annual report detailing the progress of these efforts, guided by the metrics established to measure success.

A Spanish-language translation of the Nitrate Reduction Plan’s executive summary can be found here. The full Nitrate Reduction Plan is being translated into Spanish and will be released once it is final.

The State of Oregon is seeking feedback on an ongoing basis from community members on the plan. Feedback on the plan can be submitted here.