This article appears in the fall 2026 issue of WaterWatch of Oregon’s Instream newsletter.
As part of the passage of Senate Bill 85 in 2023, WaterWatch helped secure key reforms to Oregon’s regulation of confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), including large dairies and feed lots that use significant quantities of water. Among other things, SB 85 currently limits all new CAFOs, and expanding CAFOs in “critical groundwater areas,” to 12,000 gallons per day of new groundwater use for “stockwatering” — i.e., drinking water for the animals — unless they get a permit, as most other water uses are required to have.
Unfortunately, without further action, SB 85’s limits on stockwatering will expire in September 2027. WaterWatch and other supporters of SB 85 therefore plan to ask the 2027 legislature to make SB 85’s stockwatering limits permanent, and to extend them to new stockwatering use by all expanding CAFOs, not just the ones where the groundwater is already known to be over-allocated.
Using water from Oregon’s rivers, streams, and groundwater generally requires a permit from the Oregon Water Resources Department. That gives the department a chance to consider whether the proposed source has enough water to give, as well as potential impacts to fish, wildlife, and existing water rights. Some uses, once seen as de minimis, are exempt from permit requirements, including rain collection, domestic wells, and small lawns and gardens, but most of these “exempt uses” have limits.
Before SB 85, stockwatering was exempt from permit requirements with no limit on how much water could be used, even though stockwatering on today’s large CAFOs can use several hundred thousand gallons of water per day — as much as a midsized data center. CAFOs also use large amounts of water for their industrial operations and irrigation of associated crops — several million gallons per day, all told.
Given the potential impacts of CAFOs on Oregon’s water supplies, they should at least be required to get permits for all their water uses, including drinking water for animals.
WaterWatch will keep its members posted on this issue as it moves forward.
Banner photo courtesy of Lance Cheung / U.S. Department of Agriculture, John Day River Instream cover photo couresy of Andy Archer, Instream cover design by Monet Hampson.