Slate of bills to modernize Oregon water laws await votes in final month of session

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2 days ago

An irrigation pivot sits in a crop of canola near Echo. (Photo by Kathy Aney/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
In an effort to modernize and streamline how state officials allocate what's left of Oregon's ground and surface waters, lawmakers are considering a slate of bills meant to get resource agencies collaborating on permitting reform, data collection and 'management' rather than 'regulation.'
That's according to primary water bill sponsors, state Reps. Ken Helm, D-Beaverton, and Mark Owens, R-Crane, the chair and vice chair of the House Agriculture, Land Use, Natural Resources and Water Committee. The two are sponsoring six of at least nine bills being considered in the final month of the 2025 legislative session.
'We're moving from a bias toward regulation to a bias toward management. All this stuff is moving in that direction,' Helm said of state water policy.
The two have been working on updating Oregon's water laws — specifically improving water accounting and the permitting and transfers laws — for years to preserve over-drawn basins and to deal with a backlog of more than 220 contested water rights cases currently sitting with the Oregon Department of Water Resources.
'We look to our river basins, we look to our groundwater aquifers, we've learned we probably allocated too much water. I mean, bluntly, there's not enough. There's no more water, really, to hand out,' Owens said.
Updating water laws is also a priority for Gov. Tina Kotek and her natural resources advisers, who are behind two bills this session that would require environmental reviews in water rights transfers and improve the state's ability to respond to groundwater contamination.
Senate Bill 427
Senate Bill 427 would require an environmental review before water rights are transferred for new uses. According to supporters at WaterWatch, the bill would 'close a harmful regulatory loophole' that currently allows water rights to be transferred and used for new purposes without consideration for how the change in use can lower stream flows, harm wildlife and erode water quality.
The bill is sponsored by state Sens. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, and Jeff Golden, D-Ashland, at the request of the Oregon Water Partnership, a coalition of seven nonprofit conservation groups including WaterWatch, The Nature Conservancy and the Oregon Environmental Council. More than 300 letters of testimony have been submitted in support of the bill, and 23 in opposition.
Various local water management groups and districts, including the Eugene Water and Electric Board and the League of Oregon Cities, who wrote that it would be redundant because municipal water authorities are already subject to water safety regulations, and that the Oregon Water Resources Department lacks capacity for more review.
'Before considering any changes to transfer statutes, we must first address critical improvements to the contested case process and overall efficiency within the Oregon Water Resources Department,' they wrote.
After a public hearing in February it received a unanimous vote without recommendation as to passage from the Senate Natural Resources and Wildfire Committee to the Senate Rules Committee. Senate Bill 1153
Similar to Senate Bill 427, Senate Bill 1153 would require state agencies to review water rights transfers to ensure they do not result in a loss of instream habitat for threatened or endangered species, and that the transfer will not harm water quality. It allows state agencies to make transfers conditional on instream improvements, such as enhanced fish passage, and allows tribes to review transfers in some areas.
Modernizing water rights transfers is a priority of Gov. Tina Kotek and her natural resources team, who have presented on the bill sponsored by the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Wildfire. Other supporters include the nonprofit fishing and conservation group Trout Unlimited and WaterWatch of Oregon.
'Our challenges will only intensify. A hard look at our water laws is long overdue,' Kotek natural resources advisor Chandra Ferrari wrote in a presentation to the Legislature.
The bill has received more than 400 written pieces of testimony, equally split with about 200 opposed and 200 in support. Those opposed include the Oregon Farm Bureau, Oregon Winegrowers Association and the Oregon Water Resources Congress, a nonprofit trade group made up of irrigation, water and drainage districts.
'The practical reality is that a significant number of streams in Oregon are designated as habitat for a sensitive, threatened, or endangered species or are listed as temperature impaired under Section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act due to low water flow,' officials from the groups wrote in testimony opposed to the bill. 'Under these circumstances, almost any new transfer application could trigger some concern about habitat or water quality impacts.'
An informational hearing about the bill is scheduled for Tuesday in the Senate Rules Committee, followed by a public hearing. A vote on the bill in the committee is scheduled for Thursday. Senate Bill 1154
Senate Bill 1154 would give state agencies more authority to intervene earlier in Oregon's contaminated groundwater areas and establish thresholds for contaminants that automatically qualify them as critical groundwater management areas. The bill also more clearly spells out which agencies are responsible for participating in action on groundwater management areas and what each agency is responsible for doing.
Next to modernizing water rights transfers, Kotek and her advisers' big water priority this session has been to update how groundwater quantity and quality are tracked. Kotek backs the bill, which the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Wildfire sponsored. Nonprofit environmental and social justice groups including Latino Network, Oregon Environmental Council and Oregon Rural Action also support it.
'Groundwater pollution continues to get worse in our most vulnerable communities and fuel public health crises in places like the Lower Umatilla Basin,' Latino Network Executive director Tony DeFalco wrote in a letter of support. 'Our current laws have failed to give agencies the tools they need to enforce the law, and have failed to protect at-risk Oregonians.'
The bill has now garnered more than 800 letters of opposition, due in large part to a campaign by the nonprofit trade group Oregon Natural Resource Industries. Many opposed are rural well owners and farmers.
State Reps. Bobby Levy, R-Echo, and Greg Smith, R-Heppner, spoke in opposition to the bill at its first public hearing in April.
Levy called it an 'unacceptable overreach of state power,' and a 'persecution' of rural Oregonians.
'It grants broad, unchecked authority to state agencies, allows them to walk onto private property, dig up soil, impose arbitrary restrictions and suspend water use that is critical, not only to agriculture, but to basic human life,' she told legislators.
The Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Wildfire sent it to the Rules Committee without recommendation as to passage. It's been in the Rules Committee since April 17. House Bill 3116
The bill would appropriate $3.35 million to the Oregon Water Resources Department to grant to soil and water districts in Lincoln, Union and Gilliam counties and to the nonprofit High Desert Partnership, based in Harney County, for 'place-based water planning.'
Helm and Owens. The Association of Oregon Counties and the Oregon Association of Conservation Districts also support it.
WaterWatch of Oregon opposes the bill as written and has asked that it be amended to narrow its scope. Wild Salmon Center, though neutral in its official position, has submitted testimony critical of the bill.
'We encourage the Legislature to make use of the existing Place-Based Water Planning Fund that it created in 2023 to support not only the existing pilots, but also planning efforts in other geographies,' Caylin Barter, water policy director at the center, wrote.
In April, the bill passed the House Committee on Agriculture, Land Use, Natural Resources, and Water and was referred to Ways and Means with the recommendation that it pass. House Bill 2169
Establishes an interagency water reuse team at Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality to coordinate and expand water reuse and storage projects across the state.
Helm and Owens. It also has support from unions, environmental organizations and water irrigation districts.
The bill faces no major opposition.
A vote on the bill is scheduled for Tuesday in the Joint Ways and Means Subcommittee on Natural Resources. House Bill 3501
It would largely nullify Senate Bills 427 and Senate Bill 1153, prohibiting the consideration of the public interest and potential impairment when water rights are awarded or transferred.
Owens. The Oregon Farm Bureau and the Oregon Groundwater Association also support it.
The bill has received more than 100 letters of opposition, and just nine letters of support.
'In Oregon, all sources of water belong to the public. To expressly prohibit the consideration of harm to these waters will have a major negative effect on Oregon's values and our waterways' beneficial uses, including recreation, aesthetics, and aquatic life,' wrote the executive directors of Willamette Riverkeeper.
The House Agriculture, Land Use, Natural Resources, and Water Committee sent it to the House Rules Committee in April without recommendation as to passage. House Bill 3544
House Bill 3544 and amendments, also referred to by sponsors as the 'contested case bill,' creates a uniform process for hearing contested cases in water rights permitting and transfers. It would drive parties in a contested case to reach settlement rather than litigation, reducing the backlog of contested cases, currently at more than 200, at the Oregon Water Resources Department.
Helm and Owens.
'They're going to have to open up their checkbooks to get this done, instead of sitting around on protests for years, decades or multiple decades,' Helm said about contested water permitting cases.
The nonprofit conservation group Columbia Riverkeeper as well as the Oregon Farm Bureau are opposed.
In a letter opposing the bill, Miles Johnson, a lobbyist for Columbia Riverkeeper, said the bill would 'significantly restrict individuals and public interest organizations from protesting problematic OWRD decisions.'
House Bill 3544 got two public hearings in March and April, followed by a unanimous vote out of the House Committee on Agriculture, Land Use, Natural Resources, and Water. The bill has been sitting in the Joint Ways and Means Committee since April 16. House Bill 3342
Digitizes paperwork and payments processing when it comes to water rights permits and transfers; limits extensions on the time water rights holders have to develop infrastructure and to put the water to 'beneficial use' to seven years from the date of permit approval.
Helm and Owens. Conservation groups including WaterWatch of Oregon and Wild Salmon Center also support it.
'Right now, when a person puts in for a permit to use water, they have a five year period of time in order to protect that. The department has defaulted to some very long extensions, and sometimes unlimited extensions. I've seen extensions granted in the Harney Basin for 30 years, which is water speculation,' Helm told the Capital Chronicle.
The Oregon Cattlemen's Association, Oregon Farm Bureau, League of Oregon Cities are among those opposed to the limits on water rights extensions and the new deadlines for responding to reviews from the Oregon Water Resources Department.
Awaiting Kotek's signature. House Bill 3106
Establishes a cross-agency team led by the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries to create a state water data portal where water availability, flows and usage data are centralized and accessible.
Helm and Owens. Conservation groups including WaterWatch of Oregon and Wild Salmon Center also support it.
The Oregon Forest Industries Council and a coalition of natural resource trade groups, including Oregon Farm Bureau, Columbia Gorge Fruit Growers and the Oregon Association of Nurseries. The groups wrote in their testimony that they'd prefer statewide water data be centralized at Oregon State University's Institute for Water and Watersheds.
Passed near-unanimously out of the House Committee on Agriculture, Land Use, Natural Resources, and Water in April with referral to Ways and Means, and recommendation that it be passed with amendments.
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