By Mateusz Perkowski | March 31, 2025 | Capital Press
Bipartian legislation meant to staunch groundwater depletion in Oregon’s Harney Basin by bolstering voluntary conservation measures is drawing opposition from across the political spectrum.
Though House Bill 3800 received support from some farmers and community leaders at a recent hearing, the proposal was characterized as heavy-handed government overreach in much of the submitted testimony from residents in the Harney Basin and elsewhere.
The bill has also met with hesitation from the state regulators who’d be charged with implementing it, and has been accused of undermining aquifer protections by a prominent water-focused environmental nonprofit.
However, the proposal’s chief sponsors and co-chairs of the House Agriculture Committee — Rep. Mark Owens, R- Crane and Rep. Ken Helm, D-Beaverton — say it’s intended to offer a less drastic alternative to water restrictions that will otherwise be imposed on the region.
“We just want the opportunity to try to figure out as a community how to reinvent ourselves, keep our economic position and have the ability to reach stability,” Owens said during the hearing.
If the Oregon Water Resources Department tries halting aquifer declines with its standard regulatory mechanisms, the Harney Basin is likely to endure a lot more legal conflicts among its residents, Helm said.
“That’s not good for anybody. The water’s not going to be produced by litigation,” he said. “Having a controlled soft landing here is really desirable and it’s a desirable model for us to watch carefully.”
The latest version of HB 3800 would take a multi-faceted “community approach” to regulating irrigation in the region, with the goal of reaching a “new equilibrium” of groundwater levels within three to four decades.
To allow for more targeted regulations, the bill would split the Harney Basin into seven sub-areas, each of which would have a separate “permissible total withdrawal” of groundwater meant to balance its environmental and economic needs. Regulations would kick in once groundwater levels decrease by at least 25 feet from each sub-area’s baseline, but the bill would provide “off-ramps” from restrictions if aquifer levels recover or economic conditions deteriorate more than expected.
Conversely, sub-areas whose aquifers are not on track to reach “reasonably stable” levels by 2050 would face an additional 25 percent reduction in their “permissible total withdrawal” of groundwater.
The proposal is meant to reflect the unfortunate reality that groundwater stability in the Harney Basin cannot be achieved while allowing all the region’s farmers to continue irrigating at current rates, said Owens.
“We understand there can be no more straws sucking water out of the Harney Basin,” Owens said. “In fact, we’re going to have to shut down some of those straws.”
For some of his constituents, though, the bill isn’t so much a compromise as an “obvious grab at control” by a state government that’s proven incompetent at managing water and other resources and shouldn’t be trusted.
“I call for multiple, independent and transparent studies on water before throwing in the towel on any livelihoods!” wrote Sheena Franklin, one of the bill’s opponents. “As a Harney County resident whose livelihood depends on irrigation, I am very disappointed that I voted for Mark Owens if he is supporting this type of bill. This is a shameful time in Oregon politics.”
The Oregon Cattlemen’s Association was more reserved in its written testimony than some critics of HB 3800 while making clear that “the bill appears to allow unconstitutional takings of real property rights. “
For example, the organization objected to provisions allowing OWRD modify the flow rate and total irrigation volume allowed under existing water rights.
The bill would allow such restrictions without a hearing or compensation to water rights holders, which raises due process concerns, the group said.
The organization also claimed the bill “mimics” existing regulations for “critical groundwater areas” without adhering to the procedural protections for irrigators.
“OCA is concerned that HB 3800 will impose some of the same measures that may be required in a CGWA designation, without the opportunity for landowner involvement in that decision-making,” the group said.
WaterWatch of Oregon, an environmental nonprofit, said lawmakers should allow a critical groundwater area to be designated in the Harney Basin rather than move forward with the unproven and disruptive approach of HB 3800.
The bill would interfere with OWRD’s critical groundwater area rule-making process for the region, which is already underway, and would continue allowing unsustainable groundwater withdrawals for the foreseeable future, said Kimberley Priestley, the group’s senior policy analyst.
“It would trump the state’s ability to regulate groundwater in the soon-to-be-designated critical groundwater area,” she said. “In sum, this bill takes water management in the Harney Basin in the wrong direction and undermines years and years of work toward finding a durable solution.”
This article and map originally appeared in the March 31, 2025, issue of The Capital Press.
WaterWatch staff photo of Harney Basin by Lisa Brown.
