- Residents are frustrated with Oregon’s inaction to addressing groundwater issues, which include elevated levels of nitrates well above the federal limit of 10 parts per million.
- Fertilizer runoff and wastewater from farms and industrial operations are to blame for nitrate contamination.
- State plans to end drinking water delivery in June 2023.
By: OPB | Jan. 21, 2023
As U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley peered underneath a sink belonging to Mike Pearson, the Morrow County local told him that the reverse osmosis filter provided by the county still wasn’t getting enough nitrates out of his drinking water to make it safe.
“I had one in, we tested it,” Pearson said. “And if I remember right, the best we could get is 12. And then when I put this new one in, it’s 26.1.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency maintains that any nitrate concentration above 10 parts per million is unsafe to drink.
For decades, fertilizer runoff and wastewater from farms and industrial operations have seeped into the groundwater of the Lower Umatilla Basin, an area that covers northern Morrow County and western Umatilla County. For many residents who draw their water from private wells rather than city water systems, this has meant dangerously high concentrations of nitrates, a chemical that can cause respiratory infections, thyroid dysfunctions and bladder cancer…
“State agencies have failed to protect our groundwater and are unresponsive in meeting our basic need for safe drinking water,” they wrote. “We need your immediate attention to address this rural environmental injustice.”
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