From the Editor’s Desk: Groundwater found to be tainted
Published 9:47 am Saturday, May 14, 2022
Above all else, water should be trusted to sustain us and give us health, but this is not the case for us. Not anymore. In the latest print edition of the Hermiston Herald, we covered problems with local drinking water.
We are learning that local nitrate levels are high and the Port of Morrow is adding to the problem with excess disposal.
Our polluted drinking water is increasing our risks of cancer and causing many of us in Morrow and Umatilla counties to pause before going to faucets.
Suddenly, a problem that we associated with far-off places is now our trouble, too. We become like Haiti, a place suffering from a lack of potable water, or like Flint, Michigan, a place whose fame was acquired through its polluted water.
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Morrow County Commissioner Jim Doherty is making the water pollution in his county a top priority.
“The nitrate issue in the Columbia Basin has always haunted me,” he said.
When he won election to the county board five years ago, he said he crafted a list of goals, and the nitrate problem was on the list.
“Shamefully that is where the ambition ended relative to the work,” he said. “But in this occupation, the best time to have done something was years ago, the next best time is now.”
When DEQ sent its notice about the whopping port fine of $1.3 million for nitrate pollution in the upstream aquifer, Doherty said that was a call of alarm he heard to his core.
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Thousands of Oregonians near the town of Boardman live atop an aquifer so tainted with farming chemicals that it’s not safe to drink.
State officials have known that for more than 30 years. And so has one source of that contamination — the Port of Morrow.
