State of Oregon Newsroom - June 17, 2022
Boardman, ORThe Oregon Department of Environmental Quality issued
a revised penalty to the Port of Morrow for additional violations involving
overapplication of wastewater containing nitrogen to agricultural fields
in the Lower Umatilla Basin, an area with longstanding groundwater contamination.
DEQ issued the
original penalty in January. The additional violations increase the fine by $800,000, from $1.3 million
to $2.1 million.
The Port of Morrow is one of many sources contributing to nitrate contamination
in northern Morrow and Umatilla countiesan area known as the Lower
Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area.
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By: Monica Samayoa - June 10, 2022
Morrow County declared a local state of emergency on Thursday after private
well testing showed high levels of nitrate contamination.
During a special meeting, Morrow County Commissioners voted 3-0 in favor
of the measure, which will allow the county to take immediate action to
protect drinking water. It?s the first time an Oregon county has declared
a state of emergency because of water quality issues.
The county will start distributing bottled water in the next few days
and will be setting up water distribution trailers in Boardman so residents
can fill large containers.
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By: Alex Baumhardt – June 9, 2022
In an unprecedented action, the Morrow County Commission Thursday declared
a local state of emergency over groundwater nitrate pollution that has
compromised drinking water for many in the region.
Commissioners Jim Doherty, Melissa Lindsay and Don Russell voted to make
the declaration – in effect until the end of the year – establishing
the commission to act as an “emergency management agency.”
This gives commissioners the authority to establish procedures to “prevent,
minimize and respond” to the water pollution issue, and to coordinate
with state and federal agencies for emergency financial assistance.
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SPECIAL REPORT: Now, Umatilla County joins in effort to test where residents
draw well water from the same contaminated aquifer
By Alex Baumhardt - June 7, 2022
The first time Jim Doherty visited Boardman?s West Glen neighborhood to
test people?s tap water, he had six plastic bottles from a lab in Umatilla
and communicated with residents using broken Spanglish from his years
working on farms and ranches.
Most of the homes in the mostly Latino neighborhood in northeast Oregon
are prefabricated, on large lots, with long gravel driveways where cars
and kids? toys are parked. The area is surrounded by farmland. The homeowners
draw their water from wells tapping an aquifer increasingly contaminated
with nitrates.
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Oregon State Univesity- 2022
What is nitrate?
State What is nitrate? Nitrate is a nitrogen-containing compound (NO3)
found in soil and water. Nitrogen is a nutrient needed for plant growth.
About 78% of the air that we breathe is composed of nitrogen gas. While
nitrate is the most common groundwater and drinking water contaminant.
Nitrate in the groundwater at levels below 2 parts per million may be
considered to be naturally occurring "background concentrations".
Nitrate can come from a variety of sources related to human activity,
including animal and human waste, feedlots, fertilizers and septic systems.
rarely intervened and never stopped the port as it dumped hundreds of
tons of excess nitrogen over a critical groundwater area
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SPECIAL REPORT: State officials rarely intervened and never stopped the port as it dumped
hundreds of tons of excess nitrogen over a critical groundwater area
By: Alex Baumhardt, Cole Sinanian and Jael Calloway - May 19, 2022
The state's chief environmental agency knowingly let the Port of Morrow
pollute year after year, contributing to drinking water contamination
for thousands, an investigation by the Capital Chronicle showed.
To protect jobs, the state Department of Environmental Quality addressed
the industrial pollution with deals instead of enforcement.
Agency officials accepted the port's plans over the years that promised
correction but were seldom followed.
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By: Phil Wright, East Oregonian - May 10, 2022
BOARDMAN - Morrow County Commissioner Jim Doherty is making the water pollution
in his county a top priority.
"The nitrate issue in the Columbia Basin has always haunted me,"
he said. When he won election to the county board five years ago, he said
he crafted a list of goals, and the nitrate problem was on the list.
"Shamefully that is where the ambition ended relative to the work,"
he said. "But in this occupation, the best time to have done something
was years ago, the next best time is now."
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By: Alex Baumhardt, Cole Sinanian and Jael Calloway - May 7, 2022
Guadalupe Martinez points to a 24-pack of bottled water by her kitchen
sink with just a few bottles left, one of thousands she's brought
home over the last 18 years.
"Ever since we've been living here, we've been buying water," she said.
The 54-year-old grandmother knows she can't drink the water that comes
out of her tap. It would make her and her family sick.
She is not alone
[...] Officials at the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality have
known nitrate pollution in area groundwater is putting the health of largely
low-income, Latino and immigrant families at risk. An investigation by
the Capital Chronicle established that little has been done about the
port's contribution to area water contamination besides modest fines
and engaging in agreements that the port in turn violated.
For years, port officials illegally pumped millions of gallons of wastewater
containing nitrogen in excess of what DEQ deemed safe. They piped it out
from their industrial complex in Boardman to nearby farms, which used
it on their cropland. The nitrogen-rich water is free —
a vital commodity for farmers who grow onions, potatoes, corn and more.
Once applied to the farmland, nitrogen transforms into nitrate that in
turn can make drinking water unsafe.
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By: Monica Samayoa - May 5, 2022
More than 30 years after nitrate contamination was recognized as a problem,
it's still making well water unsafe to drink in Morrow and Umatilla counties.
Silvia Hernandez has been living in a small home near the outskirts of
Boardman for the past ten years with her husband and 8-year-old child.
Since her home is near the city limits, she has no access to public water
services - just a private well for water.
When she moved in, her realtor told her the well water was safe to drink
straight from the faucet, but she never felt comfortable drinking it that way.
And it's a good thing she didn't.
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By: Alex Baumhardt - April 19, 2022
Lamb Weston's French fry production plant in Hermiston has been discharging
too much nitrate-loaded water onto area farms, according to the Oregon
Department of Environmental Quality.
The wastewater flowing from the plant has contaminated the groundwater,
causing nitrate levels in some nearby wells to measure four to seven times
the safe limit set by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, according to DEQ.
The state agency on March 31 warned the company that it faced enforcement
action for contaminating the groundwater. It was the second such notice
issued to the company in recent months.
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By: Monica Samayoa - April 19, 2022
Oregon environmental regulators have issued a "pre-enforcement notice"
to a potato processing plant in Hermiston after finding the company repeatedly
overapplied excess wastewater to nearby farmland and contaminated the
groundwater in the area.
Last month, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality found Lamb Weston
violated its water pollution permit 75 times from 2016 through 2020 and
added approximately 189 tons of excess nitrate to the groundwater in an
area where nitrate contamination already exceeds the federal limit for
safe drinking water.
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By: Alex Baumhardt - April 15, 2022
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality is asking the public to
weigh in on a revised water permit for the Port of Morrow, after it violated
its existing permit more than 1,100 times.
From 2018 to 2021, the state's second largest port dumped wastewater
on farmland containing 165 tons more nitrate than allowed. In January,
the DEQ fined the port nearly $1.3 million for the violations. The port
is appealing.
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By: Monica Samayoa (OPB) - January 31, 2022
The Port of Morrow has filed an appeal to contest a nearly $1.3 million
fine it received from state regulators for repeated wastewater violations
that contaminated groundwater in the area.
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By: Allison Frost (OPB) / Broadcast: January, 18, 2022
Many residents in the counties surrounding the Port of Morrow in Boardman
get their drinking water from groundwater. The port has a wastewater permit
for the industrial park it operates but Oregon's Department of Environmental
Quality found it violated the permit, allowing more than 165 tons of excess
nitrate into the area over the last four years, contaminating groundwater.
The DEQ fined the port $1.3 million, significantly more than previous fines
for similar contamination. OPB Science and Environment reporter Monica
Samayoa joins us to explain the significance of the nitrate contamination,
the DEQ fine and what happens from here.
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By: Lynne Terry and Alex Baumhardt - January 11, 2022
State officials said Tuesday that the Port of Morrow in northeast Oregon
for years has spread excessive amounts of nitrate-laced wastewater on
area farmlands in a way that contaminates groundwater and was "reckless"
in doing so.
The state Department of Environmental Quality made that finding in announcing
one of its largest pollution fines ever, levying a $1.3 million penalty
against the port, a public entity headquartered in Boardman.
"DEQ issued this penalty because groundwater adversely affected by
the Port of Morrow's wintertime land application of nitrogen-containing
wastewater is used as drinking water by residents" in the area, the
DEQ said in its notice delivered to the port on Monday.
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By: Dawn Stover, Columbia Insight - May 12, 2021
An environmental coalition is lobbying for a moratorium on mega-dairies,
which have proliferated in water-challenged area of Northeast Oregon
[...]
The Lower Umatilla Basin is also a state-designated Groundwater Management
Area, because of nitrate contamination typically associated with agricultural
wastes and fertilizers.
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By: Tracy Loew - January 16, 2020
Oregon regulators have failed for three decades to curb nitrate contamination
in drinking water sources near Eastern Oregon's large dairies and feedlots.
Now, eight state and national health and environment groups are asking
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to step in and take emergency action.
The groups filed a Safe Drinking Water Act petition with the EPA Thursday,
saying the contamination presents "an imminent and substantial endangerment
to the health of the residents of the Lower Umatilla Basin in Oregon."