Oregon
Oregon bill would ban new livestock farms in state’s most polluted areas
The biggest livestock farms would be prohibited from building or expanding in some of Oregon’s most polluted groundwater regions, under a proposed bill backed by environmental groups.
Those groups say it will keep nitrate pollution from getting worse in communities that rely on well water for drinking.
A coalition of environmental and sustainable farming advocacy groups is backing Senate Bill 80. Stand Up to Factory Farms argues Oregon should stop permitting new or expanding dairy farms and other big livestock farms from seeking a confined animal feeding operation, or CAFO, permit, in all of Oregon’s three groundwater management areas.
Those are areas with high levels of nitrate pollution in groundwater, and are designated by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.
Farm lobbying groups in the past have opposed attempts at a ban. They have argued it puts more unnecessary burdens on an industry they say is already over regulated.
An aerial image supplied by Food and WaterWatch shows a manure lagoon at Six Mile Dairy, a farm permitted for up to 36,000 cows in Morrow County, July 25, 2025.
Aimee Stone / Food and WaterWatch
It’s a move environmental groups say is common sense, especially in the Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area, where nitrate pollution has been a known problem for the last 30 years, and where recent reports show it has become worse over the past decade. Nitrates can cause cancer and other illnesses if consumed in high quantities, and they’re especially harmful to infants.
Studies point to local large dairy and cattle farms, wastewater from food processing facilities, and farmers applying liquid manure as fertilizer to irrigated fields as the leading sources of pollution in the area.
“Our thought is, why make the problem worse when we can say, ‘Let’s not expand, let’s not add any more livestock to these areas,’” said Amy van Saun, a senior attorney at the Center for Food Safety’s Portland office, and a member of Stand Up to Factory Farms. “Because as strict as a permit may be, it’s only as good as whether it’s followed or enforced. And the problem we see is that the state still seems like they will always say yes to these operations as long as they’ve checked all the boxes.”
This is at least the third attempt at a CAFO moratorium in Oregon. The last time, during the 2023 state legislative session, plans for a ban were scrapped by legislators following heated debate over the impact the law would have on Oregon’s livestock farms. Instead, they passed Senate Bill 85, a reform package that included stricter water use and construction requirements for CAFO facilities.
Michele Okoh, a law professor specializing in environmental justice at Lewis and Clark College, said that, while stopping mega-dairies and other large livestock farms from being built does keep pollution from getting worse, it can be easy for operators to find loopholes.
She said producers could just operate smaller farms. So instead of having one large farm with 30,000 dairy cows, they can operate 10 farms with 3,000 cows. She points to North Carolina, a state that passed a swine farm moratorium in 2007, yet the number of CAFOs has ballooned in recent years.
She added that, for communities like the ones in northern Morrow and northwest Umatilla counties to see a change in the level of pollution in their groundwater, state agencies need to step in.
“There needs to be more monitoring and education for well owners,” she said. “Because at the end of the day, if you find the contamination and you can’t do very much about it, then you can’t protect your own health. So what is the value of knowing there’s contamination, but you don’t have options?”
Last year, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek laid out plans to reduce nitrate pollution in that area, but progress has been slow.
Van Saun said while the proposed SB89 is not a cure for the problem, it will at least help it from getting worse while groups work toward regulatory solutions.
“We really need action to stop pollution at the sources, and so preventing new sources of pollution allows us a little bit more time to address those existing sources rather than continuing to pile on,” van Saun said.
2020 Labor Day wildfire survivor talks blaze’s five-year anniversary
Hear from 2020 wildfire victim Christine Grom as she talks about the results of a class action lawsuit against PacifiCorp.
The Oregon Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments in the billion dollar class action lawsuit between survivors of four 2020 Labor Day Fires and PacifiCorp.
The state’s high court will hear arguments at 1:30 p.m. on Nov. 3 in Salem, in a case with billions on the line for thousands of victims impacted by one of the worst disasters in state history.
The review represents a win for wildfire survivors, many of whom live in the Santiam Canyon and lost everything in the fires, and who stood to lose billions in jury awards following an April decision by the Oregon Court of Appeals.
How did we get here?
In June 2023, a Multnomah County jury found PacifiCorp at fault for causing the Santiam, Echo Mountain, 242 and South Obenchain fires and liable to a class of roughly 2,000 victims.
In the years since the verdict, juries have awarded more than $1.2 billion to 189 wildfire survivors, over the course of 18 “mini trials” designed to determine awards to fire victims.
On April 8, the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled the 2023 verdict was flawed, writing that instructions to the jury were “prejudicial to PacifiCorp.”
The appeals court reversed and remanded the case, which would have wiped out all awards and previous legal decisions.
Lawyers for the wildfire victims filed an appeal to the Oregon Supreme Court, also in April, and the high court granted certiorari on June 25.
The timeline for Oregon’s high court hearing the case appears swifter than normal, perhaps representing the need to bring some resolution for a case that’s been ongoing for five years.
“The thousands of Oregonians whose homes PacifiCorp burned are grateful that the Oregon Supreme Court will hear their case quickly,” lead council for the wildfire victims said in a statement.
PacifiCorp issued a statement saying they expected the court of appeals decision to be upheld.
“We respect the Oregon Supreme Court’s decision to review the case and will continue to participate fully in the process, presenting our position through the Court’s established briefing schedule,” a statement from PacifiCorp said. “We look forward to the Court’s consideration of the key issues and to the Court affirming the unanimous Oregon Court of Appeals decision.”
What will the court decide?
In reversing the original verdict, the Court of Appeals ruled that a set of instructions given to the jury, in the 2023 case, was in error and prejudicial to PacifiCorp.
The offending instruction, the ruling said, centered on the trial court telling the jury that it could “assume that the evidence at the trial applies to all class members.”
“We conclude … that instruction was legally erroneous, because certain evidence at trial, particularly related to causation, did not necessarily apply to every class member,” the appeals court wrote.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that “the challenged instruction was appropriate” and that the Court of Appeals ruling “rests on a misinterpretation that no party held at trial and no juror adopted,” they wrote in their appeal to the Supreme Court.
In a news release announcing it would take up the case, the Supreme Court said it would examine the jury instructions and ruling by the appeals court.
Zach Urness has been an outdoors reporter in Oregon for 18 years and is host of the Explore Oregon Podcast. He can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or 503-399-6801. Find him on X at @ZachsORoutdoors and BlueSky at oregonoutdoors.bsky.social
The National Weather Service says there is no tsunami threat following a magnitude 5.5 earthquake off the Oregon coast.
The U.S. Geological Survey says the quake struck at 4:35 a.m. about 175 miles southwest of Eugene, Oregon, at a depth of about 6 miles in the Pacific Ocean.
National Weather Service says no tsunami threat after 5.5 quake off Oregon coast (KVAL/SBG)
The earthquake occurred in the Blanco Fracture Zone, a seismically active area where hundreds of earthquakes occur each year.
There have been no reports of residents along the southern Oregon coast feeling the quake.
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PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — The Oregon Department of Human Services is asking for help finding a 2-year-old boy who is believed to be in danger.
Armani Andrews disappeared on June 17 and is thought to be with someone in the Portland area, officials said.
He’s about two feet tall with brown hair and brown eyes and African American/mixed race, ODHS said.
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Armani Andrews (file, courtesy Oregon Department of Human Services). -
Armani Andrews (file, courtesy Oregon Department of Human Services).
Locations around Portland that the child may have frequented include the Rose Haven shelter on Northwest Glisan Street, the Multnomah County Central Library on Southwest 10th Avenue and Southeast Portland between 82nd and 103rd avenues.
People who have any information about Andrews’ whereabouts are asked to call 911.
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