Today, 43 climate, environmental justice, animal welfare and family-farmer groups, including members of the Stand Up to Factory Farms Coalition (SUFF) and their allies, sent a letter urging Oregon legislators to support SB80 – a vital bill that would prevent the construction of any new or expanding large confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in Oregon’s polluted Groundwater Management Areas (GWMAs). 

Advocates are urging the Senate Natural Resources committee to schedule a public hearing and work session for this important bill.

“Over the past few years we have seen the acute and systemic harms caused by factory farms across the state, including in the state’s GWMAs, where nitrate contamination has been severe for decades,” the letter states. 

SB80 is a critical step to prevent the public health crisis in Oregon’s GWMAs from worsening. For example, the Lower Umatilla Basin, home to the largest operating factory farm in Oregon, suffers from widespread decades-long nitrate contamination caused by irrigated agriculture and CAFOs. And maps have shown that high concentrations of the state’s large CAFOs are located in already polluted GWMAs.    

State analysis has long concluded that irrigated agriculture and factory farms are contributing to the area’s ongoing nitrate contamination. Factory farms store massive amounts of nitrogen-laden manure in lagoons and then spray it onto farm fields, where it can seep into the groundwater, contaminating the wells we rely on for drinking, cooking, and bathing.

Oregon’s other two GWMAs haven’t fared much better. The Northern Malheur County GWMA already has a high concentration of large beef feedlots, and has suffered from unsafe levels of nitrates since the GWMA was declared in 1989. In the Southern Willamette Valley GWMA – the state’s most recently-established GWMA – some wells have tested as high as 27 mg/l, which is almost triple the EPA’s threshold for safe drinking water.

Community members living without safe drinking water have pushed Oregon’s elected officials and regulatory agencies to take some important steps to address this crisis. SB85 – which passed in 2023 and imposed some new protections from factory farm pollution – was an important step towards addressing these problems. The Environmental Protection Agency has also told the state that it must do better to reduce nitrate contamination from the source, including from CAFOs. Despite all of this, the state’s most recent plan to address contamination in the Lower Umatilla Basin continues to rely on voluntary measures that have failed for decades.

“Industrial polluters have essentially turned the LUBGWMA region into an environmental sacrifice zone where the interests of corporate profits are elevated over the health and wellbeing of the communities living in the basin. While factory farms are only one of many polluters contributing to this crisis, this bill would begin alleviating the source, while regulatory agencies, the governor, and EPA continue to work to address the crisis,” the letter concludes.