Oregon Capitol.

Cities would be exempt from the latest version of a bill imposing new environmental restrictions on Oregon water transfers, neutralizing an important faction of resistance to the proposal.

Proponents of the recent amendment say the exemption is warranted because municipal governments must comply with stricter environmental regulations than other water users.

“When a city needs to move their drinking water intake, they go through federal and state reviews that already include the review of impacts to the resource,” such as the effects on water quality and protected species, said Niki Iverson, a representative of the League of Oregon Cities.

Farm organizations remain opposed to Senate Bill 1153, which they say will paralyze one of the last flexible tools for managing water in the state while spurring more legal conflict.

The bill sets a vague standard for potential harms to fish, which could encompass transfers with alleged impacts to stream flows that aren’t even measurable, said Sen. Todd Nash, R-Enterprise, who is a rancher.

“To contribute to the reduction of flows is really easy to do,” he said. “You could go to the Columbia River, dip a tea spoon in, then throw it over your shoulder to the bank.”

The amended bill is being considered by the Senate Rules Committee, which is scheduled to vote on it on June 9.

Environmental groups believe lawmakers have made enough concessions to water users, arguing the amended version of SB 1153 is “a shadow of the original bill,” said Kimberley Priestley, senior policy analyst for the WaterWatch of Oregon nonprofit.

Other states in the West have imposed environmental restrictions on water transfers without the catastrophic results predicted by opponents, she said. “They have not stalled, they have not stopped.”

Apart from exempting municipal governments, the revised proposal only prohibits transfers that harm fish — a narrower restriction compared to the original bill, which prohibited harm to aquatic species more broadly, according to supporters.

Supporters say the latest version only requires environmental reviews for transfers that move points of diversion upstream, which can reduce stream flows in the intervening stretch of river, or for wells that are relocated closer to rivers, which can also disrupt stream flows.

New water rights applications are currently subject to environmental reviews but transfers are not, which environmental groups consider a “loophole” or “blind spot” that SB 1153 means to correct. Under current law, water regulators only review transfers for the potential to harm other water rights.

“They cannot look at environmental harm,” said Caylin Barter, water policy director of the Wild Salmon Center nonprofit.

The bill’s detractors acknowledge the amended version of SB 1153 isn’t as heavy-handed as the original proposal but claim it’s still deeply problematic.

The legislation introduces “layers of vague, undefined environmental standards” that will obstruct water rights transfers for farmers while state regulators study whether such transactions harm fish, said Greg Addington, executive director of the Oregon Farm Bureau.

“These are incredibly subjective criteria that will lead to disagreement, protests and increased litigation,” he said.

Despite repeated requests by farm organizations, proponents of SB 1153 have been unable to provide any concrete examples of harm caused by water transfers under current regulations, Addington said. “That makes this policy by assumption, not need.”

Though other revisions to the bill have improved its “trajectory,” it still suffers from defects that lawmakers should continue working on after this year’s legislative session adjourns this month, he said.

As it stands, the proposal will place the burden on irrigators to hire lawyers and experts to refute the presumption that water transfers are detrimental to fish, said Steve Shropshire, attorney for the Oregon Association of Nurseries. “The bill asks the water user community to prove a negative,” he said.

The development process for SB 1153 has been “antithetical to the Oregon way,” with Gov. Tina Kotek’s office taking a top-down approach that likely hindered the bill’s progress compared to a more bipartisan strategy, said April Snell, executive director of the Oregon Water Resources Congress, which represents irrigation districts.

The proposal seems not to recognize that the agricultural community has voluntarily dedicated some of the state’s most senior water rights to in-stream purposes to improve aquatic habitats, Snell said.

“Senate Bill 1153 puts all the work we’ve done in jeopardy,” she said.