Fertilizer and irrigation practices will be scrutinized more closely in Oregon’s Lower Umatilla Basin under a new regulatory plan to decrease the region’s groundwater nitrate pollution.

However, farm organizations say they don’t see eye-to-eye with the state government regarding scientific data that will be critical for protecting and restoring the area’s aquifers.

Data baseline missing

“There’s nothing currently to base decisions around that is trusted,” said JR Cook, executive director of the Northeast Oregon Water Association, which represents irrigators in the region.

Without a trusted baseline of data about what’s causing the problem, and against which to measure success, the plan must rely on agency opinions in which farm groups lack confidence, he said.

“As a region, we don’t know if these regulations are going to tackle the issue of certain areas having high nitrates,” Cook said.

State will take lead

Several state agencies will carry out the nitrate reduction plan for the Lower Umatilla Groundwater Management Area, with the Oregon Department of Agriculture taking the lead on objectives related to nutrient leaching from fertilizers.

Over the next couple years, ODA will develop benchmarks for nitrates in soil that will likely require testing farmland in the region, though the details have yet to be ironed out, said Isaak Stapleton, the agency’s natural resources program area director.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a departure from the agency’s work. It’s an enhancement of the work we’re doing,” he said.

Applications of nitrogen, as well as the water that allows it to travel through the soil, are expected to figure heavily in the overall strategy for reducing nitrates in the aquifer system, Stapleton said. The benchmarks for soil nitrogen are necessary to help farmers stay in regulatory compliance.

“How can people avoid speeding if they don’t know what the speed limit is?” he said. “We’re trying to provide levels to help growers make management decisions, not tell them what decisions to make.”

Specifics will be “fleshed out” as the ODA engages with the agriculture industry about the regulatory structure and exact thresholds in 2025, then begins implementing the plan in 2026, Stapleton said.

Timeline ‘very broad’

“That timeline is very broad and that’s intentional, because it could go faster or slower,” he said.

Though the agency does not intend to create a new permit system for farmers applying conventional fertilizers, manure applications will require permits under legislation that precedes the plan’s announcement, Stapleton said.

Enforcement of the new regulatory approach will follow the same “pathway” as for existing agricultural quality rules, with ODA initially focusing on outreach and education, then imposing sanctions if farmers don’t correct violations, he said.

“The goal is not to hit people over the head with an enforcement action. The goal is compliance,” Stapleton said.

Stapleton said he’s heard the criticisms about data gaps, but says the agencies “recognize these all need to be science-based decisions.”

The plan will rely on information that’s available to head off water pollution, which can’t be delayed until more research is performed, he said. “We can’t kick the can and we must take action.”

Farm groups skeptical

From the outset, though, the plan is encountering skepticism from farm organizations that don’t think it’s based on a solid scientific foundation.

A coalition of state agricultural groups has complained to state agencies that “peer-reviewed science and new technologies are pushed aside by entrenched opinions” too often by Oregon regulators.

“This has led to mistrust and missed opportunities for collaborative, adaptive solutions to long-standing problems,” according to the coalition’s letter.

While the Lower Umatilla Basin is “one of the most heavily studied regions in Oregon,” the coalition claims “those studies have never been consolidated into a peer-reviewed, baseline data set” upon which decisions should be made.

“We certainly don’t want our agencies making this up as they’re going along,” said Katie Murray, executive director of the Oregonians for Food and Shelter agribusiness group.

For example, ODA’s soil nitrogen benchmark plan seems to lack “a strong body of evidence that would make that meaningful,” particularly given the numerous variables affecting nutrient leaching, she said.

‘Legacy’ contamination

Nitrates in the region’s groundwater are often the result of “legacy” contamination from earlier decades, which the plan doesn’t seem to prioritize fixing, Murray said. Instead, the strategy emphasizes preventing continual inputs, which won’t remedy existing pollution.

“Figuring out how to address that issue will get us most of the way out of the problem,” she said.

Instead of encouraging the agriculture industry to pump out polluted groundwater for irrigation and recharge the aquifer with clean water, the state’s Department of Environmental Quality is hindering such methods from being tested, said Cook of the Northeast Oregon Water Association.

‘Hot spots’ unexplained

The state government appears to consider farming the main culprit in nitrate pollution, but that doesn’t explain certain “hot spot areas” of contamination, which are disconnected from agricultural land uses, Cook said.

The plan should specifically examine what’s causing pollution in such “compartments” of the aquifer system, rather than treating it as one big underground water body, he said.

“If the state continues to oversimplify and say it’s all one big lake, it gives them an excuse to blame the biggest economic producers,” Cook said.