From birds to beverages and flowers to fossils, these icons of history, nature and pride represent Oregon.
Elizabeth Steiner made history Monday as she was sworn in by Gov, Tina Kotek as Oregon’s first female and openly LGBTQ+ Treasurer.
Steiner said she was “unbelievably happy” and would work to take a “both/and” approach to issues.
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“As a family physician, I am all too aware that financial insecurity is the leading cause of poor health. Too many Oregonians are living with what appears to be an unbreakable ceiling between them and financial security,” she said.
Steiner helped write Oregon’s budget as co-chair of the Joint Ways and Means Committee from 2018 to 2024. She was first appointed to the state senate in 2012 and represented northwest Portland and Beaverton until resigning after being elected treasurer.
Prior to becoming Treasurer, Steiner was a doctor for more than 30 years and an associate professor at Oregon Health & Science University beginning in 1999.
She campaigned on making programs like Oregon Saves and the College Saving Plan more accessible.
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Steiner pledged she would “double the percentage of children in Oregon with a college savings plan, ensure that the vast majority of Oregonians are saving for retirement, significantly expand the reach of the ABLE program, and establish child savings accounts so that every child born in Oregon has savings available to them when they turn 18.”
Steiner’s election marks the last of Oregon’s statewide offices to be filled by a woman, or “the longest-lasting glass ceiling in Oregon’s politics,” as presenter Kerry Tymchuk said.
Tymchuk is the executive director of the Oregon Historical Society, where the swearing-in was held.
Outgoing attorney general Ellen Rosenblum was the first female in the position when she took office in 2012. The first female secretary of state was Norma Paulus in 1977. Barbara Roberts became the state’s first female governor in 1991. Roberts, Rosenblum, Kotek and former Gov. Kate Brown all attended Steiner’s swearing in.
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Kotek reflected on her 20-year history with Steiner and said she “couldn’t be more proud of [her] friend.”
Steiner ran against Republican Brian Boquist, who served alongside her in the Senate, and Working Families Party candidate Mary King.
As treasurer, Steiner is Oregon’s chief financial officer and oversees the treasury and public funds. She will join Secretary of State Tobias Read and Kotek on the State Land Board, overseeing the Department of State Lands and the Common School Fund.
In his last week as Treasurer, Read released the first annual progress report for a plan that would reduce the Oregon Public Employee Retirement Fund (OPERF) portfolio to net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Steiner campaigned on continuing those efforts and said she would see if it could be accomplished before the 2050 goal.
The first annual report evaluated some companies on their transition readiness and created an advisory group of retirees and unions representing public employees.
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Steiner said she wanted the effort to be transparent and that while the environmental impact of “moving away from high carbon” and “getting a portfolio net zero” is a benefit of the plan, it is not the main focus.
“We’re doing that fundamentally to protect the pension fund,” Steiner said. “It is the fiduciarily responsible thing to do.”
Anastasia Mason covers state government for the Statesman Journal. Reach her at acmason@statesmanjournal.com or 971-208-5615.
Reused wastewater is at the center of residents’ latest complaint against industry giants.
Port of Morrow’s East Beach Facility in Boardman, Oregon, on April 15, 2022.
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Monica Samayoa / OPB
The legal team behind a lawsuit against some of Eastern Oregon’s biggest agricultural businesses is headed back to court with a new case over drinking water pollution.
On Friday, the attorneys filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of four Lower Umatilla Basin residents.
The complaint accuses Portland General Electric and Columbia River Processing, a Morrow County subsidiary of Tillamook Creamery, of polluting the basin’s groundwater by sending nitrate-rich wastewater to the Port of Morrow.
The port delivers the wastewater to farms that reuse it to fertilize fields.
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The Dec. 5 complaint comes on the heels of a 2024 lawsuit accusing the port, as well as several farms and food processors, of polluting the basin’s groundwater.
“We believe Portland General Electric and Tillamook need to do right by their Oregon communities and cease all practices contributing to this contamination,” according to a statement from Steve Berman, a lead attorney for the residents.
A representative from PGE declined to comment. Tillamook Creamery did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Nitrates are chemicals often found in fertilizers and wastewater. Consuming large quantities of nitrates can lead to illnesses like cancer and kidney disease. Babies and pregnant parents are especially vulnerable.
The state has known about Eastern Oregon’s problem with nitrate pollution for more than 35 years.
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Oregon declared parts of western Umatilla County and northern Morrow County, the Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area in 1990, but nitrate levels have only risen since then.
Studies have shown that the largest contributor to nitrate pollution is irrigated agriculture, which often uses fertilizer and wastewater to maximize crop yields. Excess nitrates then seep through the soil and groundwater. Food processors and livestock farms are also contributors.
The lawsuit argues that PGE’s Coyote Springs power plant and Columbia River Processing were significant polluters.
The lawsuit states that all four of the plaintiffs were harmed because they lived near farms that used PGE and Tillamook’s wastewater to fertilize crops.
Private wells, which many basin residents who live outside cities rely on for water, are especially at risk for nitrate pollution because they’re not subject to the same water quality standards as municipal systems.
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Two of the plaintiffs, Michael Pearson, who is also a part of the lawsuit filed last year, and Jeffrey Fleming, are on private wells.
But the other two plaintiffs, Rosa Cavasos of Boardman and Jon Haley of Irrigon, rely on their cities for their drinking water.
The lawsuit states that both started buying bottled water after learning about local nitrate pollution. The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has labeled both Boardman and Irrigon’s water systems as having “substantial nitrate risk” because of elevated levels found in the cities’ supplies.
Should a jury ultimately side with basin residents, it could require action from PGE and Tillamook, in addition to financial compensation.
The lawsuit is also seeking to certify well water owners and municipal water customers as classes that could later join the other plaintiffs, a move that could potentially add thousands more people to the lawsuit.
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Although efforts are already underway to connect basin residents with clean water, the complaint asks the court to make the companies cover the costs of connecting residents to municipal water systems or digging deeper wells.
The companies would also be required to create a medical monitoring program for residents on private wells.
The basin residents filed their complaint as the 2024 lawsuit continues to wind its way through the court system.
The businesses in that case tried to get the complaint dismissed by arguing that federal courts don’t have jurisdiction over nitrate regulation. They claimed that authority belongs with state agencies like DEQ and the Oregon Department of Agriculture.
In March, a federal judge in Pendleton allowed the lawsuit to proceed and referred it to a federal court in Portland.
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Ashland Community Hospital’s childbirth and inpatient services will be consolidated to Asante’s Medford medical center.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Another Oregon health care organization is making cuts.
The brick-and-mortar Ashland Community Hospital will shutter in 2026, Asante revealed on Wednesday. The Medford-based medical care provider announced that the facility will continue operating through the year before transitioning into a “satellite campus” of the nearby Rogue Regional Medical Center in the spring.
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In a statement, Asante President and CEO Tom Gessel said the “transition is the only option” as health care entities across the U.S. — and specifically in Oregon — continue to struggle. He noted that the Ashland Community Hospital has “lost millions of dollars” over the past year, as the facility simultaneously recorded a significant decrease in birth rates and inpatient admissions.
According to Asante, 37 Ashland residents have given birth in the hospital so far in 2025. Meanwhile, the organization reported that the demand for outpatient services and emergency department visits has risen.
“Legislation implemented in Salem has put hospitals in an untenable situation,” Gessel added in a statement, in part. “This will only worsen with the future reductions to Medicaid funding. For smaller communities like ours, consolidating duplicative services are inevitable — especially those in such close proximity. What this means for the Ashland campus is to maintain emergency and outpatient services being used most by residents, while consolidating services that are underutilized.”
The Asante announcement comes days after Portland’s Vibra Specialty Hospital announced it will cease operations around Feb. 1, 2026. The closure will impact 310 employees.
The Oregon Nurses Association has condemned both organizations’ decisions to cut back, arguing that workers and patients deserve “long-term investments” in medical care.
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“These closures represent a devastating loss of critical healthcare access for Oregonians, forcing patients to travel farther for care, increasing risks in emergencies, and placing additional strain on an already overburdened health system,” ONA said in a release.
Providence Seaside Hospital also stopped offering labor and delivery services earlier in October of this year.
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A double punch of Oregon hospital facility closures drew condemnation Thursday from the Oregon Nurses Association, which cast the developments as “a devastating loss of critical health care access for Oregonians” that will strain an already overburdened health system and force patients to travel farther to seek care.
On Monday came the news that 73-bed Vibra Specialty Hospital of Portland would shutter, leaving Oregon without a long-term acute care hospital, a facility that generally cares for patients with complex needs after they have been stabilized and discharged from a traditional hospital.
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Then, on Wednesday, came news from down the Interstate 5 corridor. Asante Ashland Community Hospital, a historic 49-bed inpatient facility, said it would eliminate inpatient services and a birthing center next year as it diminishes into a satellite campus of a larger hospital 11 miles up the freeway.
Under the plan, the hospital would retain its emergency department and outpatient operations. “We want to lean into what services at this facility the community is accessing, which is emergency services in the ED, outpatient surgeries and imaging,” Medford-based Asante said on a webpage, emphasizing that birth rates at the hospital have declined.
Echoing the rationales offered by Vibra leaders on Monday, the Asante CEO said the decision was a response to a worsening financial and regulatory landscape for Oregon hospitals.
“Bold, difficult decisions are needed to combat the headwinds,” Tom Gessel, president and CEO of Asante, said in a statement. “Legislation implemented in Salem has put hospitals in an untenable situation. This will only worsen with the future reductions to Medicaid funding. For smaller communities like ours, consolidating duplicative services are inevitable—especially those in such close proximity.”
The Asante System’s claims of money issues have, however, raised questions.
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In 2023 and 2024—the two most recent fiscal years for which audited financial statements are available—the health system reported a collective overall profit of more than $240 million.
Meanwhile, financial data from the Oregon Health Authority says Asante Ashland Community Hospital itself made millions of dollars in 2024 and continued doing so through the first half of 2025, with operating margins that outpaced those of most hospitals in the state.
As The Lund Report earlier noted, Asante, in apparent contradiction to that information, is now asserting in external communications that its finances have gone south. A Wednesday news release from the health system included a statement from the CEO saying that “this past year, Ashland Community Hospital lost millions of dollars.” A separate FAQ on Asante’s website said the “facility is on pace to lose $7.3 million.”
An Asante spokesperson did not respond by deadline to a question from WW about the discrepancy between the information Asante is issuing and state data.
The state says its data comes from information self-reported by hospitals.
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That wrinkle notwithstanding, the ONA frames the retreats, just the latest in a wave of Oregon heath care facility closures in recent months, as part of a broader crisis. The crisis, it says, is fueled by health care funding cuts under the Trump administration and the “increasing corporatization of health care, which prioritizes profit over patients and community needs.”
