Warm Springs Drinking Water

In Washington D-C this week, senators considered drinking water problems in rural Oregon as prime examples of a national crisis.

OPB’s Emily Cureton Cook reports that at a committee hearing, Senator Ron Wyden called drinking water access an emergency. And he pointed to dry wells in Southern Oregon, polluted groundwater in Eastern Oregon, and years of water outages on the Warm Springs Reservation in Central Oregon.

Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Chairperson Jonathan Smith traveled across the country to testify, explaining how the tribes rely on the Deschutes River for drinking water “we are downstream from rapidly growing communities like Bend and Redmond, Oregon, as well as thousands of acres of irrigated agriculture. As a result, our drinking water quality is impaired.” Smith urged lawmakers to prioritize river conservation. Wyden called on several federal agencies to collect national data on where water is unsafe, and direct more funding to  rural people and Tribes.

Chairman Smith, was asked by Nevada Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, if the requirement to cost share with federal dollars to obtain federal funding was a barrier.  She asked if eliminating the cost-share requirement would be helpful.  “Most definitely,” Smith answered. “Yes, it would.”  Eliminating a 50% cost-share that requires tribes to contribute half of the money for a water project to access federal money would be helpful, he said.

A new water treatment facility is being planned for the Agency Water System on the Warm Springs Reservation.  That is about 5 years away.  The new operation will continue to draw water from teh Deschutes River.