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.

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.