“Rural Oregon’s struggles for drinking water frame Senate talks of national crisis”

By Emily Cureton Cook | OPB | September 21, 2023

“At a Senate subcommittee hearing Wednesday, Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden rattled off a list of Oregonians struggling to meet basic water needs. He mentioned dry wells in Southern Oregon, polluted groundwater in Eastern Oregon and Central Oregon, and years of boil water notices on the Warm Springs Reservation.

Wyden called on several federal agencies to collect national data on who doesn’t have safe water and direct more funding toward rural residents and Tribes.

“It’s hard to believe that in 2023 our country doesn’t even have some basic facts about the key issues to improve water quality, like who has indoor plumbing in America that actually works,” he told members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.”