ENTERPRISE, Ore. — The Wallowa County Board of Commissioners has approved a letter objecting to Oregon Water Resources Department plans to implement groundwater allocation rules.

The county is asking the department to reject the proposed rules since they would be “harmful to the county and the state.” The commissioners approved and sent the letter at their meeting on May 15.

The commissioners said that since Wallowa County is a frontier county with water fed by pristine high-mountain lakes and streams and that little groundwater in the county has been developed, it is not experiencing the kind of decline in groundwater supplies that the proposed rules are meant to counteract.

The department’s actions come because Oregon is one of many Western states dealing with rapid groundwater depletion. In some parts of the state, over-pumped groundwater aquifers are resulting in dry wells, affecting residential and commercial sectors and irrigated farming operations.

That’s why the department — which is in charge of managing the state’s water supplies — is proposing some changes, mainly on how it determines if water is available to support new wells.

As state officials begin holding a series of meetings across Oregon, some environmentalists are praising the proposed changes, while some agricultural groups are pushing back.

The letter the commissioners approved is part of that pushback. It states that according to department data, wells in the county are among the most sparse in the state, amounting to one to 16 wells per 40 acres in most of the county. Accompanying department graphics show a low occurrence of groundwater development and a lack of water overallocation in the county.

The letters says the rules include a test for “reasonably stable” water levels that will inappropriately shift an insurmountable burden to property owners to conduct many years of expensive studies of their groundwater, the letter states.

Also, a revised definition of “potential for substantial interference” will result in application denial in nearly all areas of the state, according to the letter. The proposals will establish an unnecessary and unjustified de facto moratorium on new groundwater development.

“It is notable that OWRD has no ‘representative wells’ to use in Wallowa County … (which) means, according to OWRD’s explanations, that no Wallowa County groundwater applications will be approved absent many years of very expensive private groundwater studies, even though there is very little groundwater use and no over-allocation identifiable within the county,” the letter says.

The letter goes onto state that the proposed rules will negatively affect other areas of the state where the department does not have sufficient date or has not conducted studies.

The letter also cites the urban-rural divide in that the only likely area where groundwater permits will be approved would be in a “narrow subset in the Willamette Valley, which is the only place OWRD has found no hydraulic connection between groundwater and surface water.” Thus, those outside that area “will suffer from this harsh proposed rule that is disproportionate to the needs and realities of the various groundwater resources throughout the state.”

Under the current rules, according to OPB, people can get a permit to pump much more water than rain and snowfall can naturally replenish. There’s also not enough consideration for the long-term impact the new permit might have on existing water right holders or surface bodies of water like rivers or streams — often fed by aquifers. That’s according to Justin Iverson, the groundwater manager at the state’s water resources department.

The proposed new rules, developed over several meetings, would add more clarity and define “reasonably stable” groundwater levels — a definition the current rules lack. People seeking new water rights would also have to prove groundwater levels are stable enough in their area to support a new permit, meaning if an applicant is unable to provide enough data on whether groundwater levels in the area are stable, the application will likely get denied.

But the letter disputes what is defined as “reasonably stable” and says to determine that would be prohibitively costly to landowners.

Commission Chairman Todd Nash said Tuesday that the rules are a “one-size-fits-all set of rules that don’t work in Wallowa County.”

Nash and fellow Commissioner John Hillock acknowledged and thanked water law attorney Sarah Liljefelt for her work in drafting the letter. Liljefelt attended the meeting via Zoom.