Mega-Dairy CAFOs Tout Methane Digesters to Green Their Image

The Sierra Club - By Juliet Grable - March 7, 2024

In 2022, officials in Oregon’s Morrow County declared a state of emergency. The announcement was not in response to a sudden event like a wildfire, earthquake, or flood. Yet it was something just as grave: Their water was dangerously polluted. 

For three decades, agricultural and industrial runoff has contaminated groundwater in the Lower Umatilla Basin of the state. Last summer, canvassers for the Oregon Health Authority went door to door, testing residents’ well water to see just how bad the situation had become.

“Right off the bat, it was pretty clear that the problem was really severe,” says Kaleb Lay, community organizer at Oregon Rural Action. Forty percent of the wells tested showed concentrations of nitrates above the level deemed safe by the US EPA. The link between high nitrate levels and several diseases is well-established; some newer studies suggest that even very low nitrate levels may heighten the risk of certain cancers. “You can’t throw a rock in the city of Boardman without finding someone who has cancer or a miscarriage,” says Lay. “The trick is there's no straightforward test a doctor can use to connect an individual's health condition to nitrates."