A small Eastern Oregon community continues fighting for safe water
It’s been over four years since West Glen tap water tests revealed its well water was contaminated with dangerous levels of nitrates. Four years since Morrow County declared a local state of emergency due to severe groundwater contamination.
Mike Pearson on step of house in West Glen. (Photo by Carolyn Campbell)
Four years since West Glen, an unincorporated neighborhood adjacent to Boardman, began relying on state-provided 5-gallon bottled water jugs.
Today, most residents still live with unsafe tap water, fighting against a system many believe is stacked against them.
On March 25th, a week before Amazon announced its settlement to pay $20.5 million over northeast Oregon nitrate pollution, Mike Pearson, the primary claimant in the class-action suit Pearson v. Port of Morrow, sat on the steps in front of his house in West Glen. In a recent test, Pearson’s own well tested 46.8 milligrams (mg/L) per liter for nitrates, four times higher than the EPA’s safe federal limit of 10 mg/L.