Salem, OR — Last week, Governor Tina Kotek signed Senate Bill 1154 and House Bill 3525 into law, two pieces of legislation which take essential steps forward to address water quality and transparency concerns, while protecting the health of all Oregonians.

“There is no more essential public resource than water,” Governor Kotek said. “Oregonians are dependent on groundwater resources for a number of purposes, the most important of which is providing drinking water for Oregonians across the state. We have to make sure that the quality and amount of water in our streams and aquifers is more resilient to the growing impacts caused by changing climate and increasing demands.

“Over two years of responding to nitrate contamination in the Lower Umatilla Basin has taught us a lot. Addressing contamination carries a hefty price tag, and requires extensive, long-term coordination between agencies and impacted communities. Threats to Oregon’s groundwater are only growing, and our toolbox for addressing them desperately needed to be updated. These two pieces of legislation are critical to getting us there.”

"Water is life and every Oregonian has the right to know if the water they are consuming is safe," Chief Sponsor of HB 3525 Representative Annessa Hartman (D-Gladstone) said. "With HB 3525, we're finally shining a light on communities that have been overlooked for far too long, giving them the transparency they deserve. I am proud that we fought to make this a reality."

"The passage of SB 1154 and HB 3525 is a meaningful step toward protecting vulnerable communities in Oregon,” Cheyenne Holliday, Director of Policy & Advocacy at Verde said. “Together, these bills begin to repair long-standing gaps in our groundwater protections by centering the needs of rural communities, renters, and frontline families. They bring transparency, accountability, and respect for the right of every Oregonian to know their water is safe. These wins were made possible through deep collaboration amongst a broad range of stakeholders committed to shaping policy that truly works for people."

“All Oregonians need and deserve adequate supplies of safe, clean water,” Karen Lewotsky, Rural Partnerships & Water Policy Director for Oregon Environmental Council said. “Senate Bill 1154’s updates to the Groundwater Quality Protection Act help ensure that Oregon will never have a repeat of the decades-long nitrate-pollution challenge faced by residents of the Lower Umatilla Groundwater Management Area. House Bill 3525’s well-testing requirements will provide badly needed protections for those mostly rural renters dependent on groundwater for their drinking water supplies. Stakeholders and legislators worked long hours on these two bills, and their commitment to that work increased the state's ability to meet its responsibilities for protecting Oregonians from contaminated groundwater, and ensure that the resource itself is sustainably managed.”

Senate Bill 1154 strengthens and modernizes the state’s Groundwater Quality Protection Act (GQPA) by (1) promoting a proactive approach that prompts earlier agency and local action to address contamination with focused attention toward data collection and analysis and incentivizing best management practices; (2) improving the ability of state agency and local partners to effectively and promptly address contamination when critical thresholds are met; and (3) ensuring accountability during implementation.

House Bill 3525 requires landlords who own dwellings for which the source of drinking water is an exempt (domestic) well in a Groundwater Quality Management Area (GWMA) to collect and test samples of drinking water from the dwelling unit for arsenic, coliform bacteria, lead, and nitrates.

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