New data confirms contaminated wells in Crook County, but doesn’t point to source

A state report released this month confirms contaminated water in more than two dozen Crook County home wells, some of which contain high levels of heavy metals and other pollutants that put human health at risk.

The water testing, commissioned by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, shows a grim picture of a rural aquifer relied upon by scores of residents living outside of Prineville.

Their homes are near a sand and gravel mining site that has long been under scrutiny for its potential role as a polluter. The site’s operator, Knife River Corporation, denies it’s to blame, and is seeking state authorization to expand work in the area.

“Independent tests stretching back to 2017, before we started operating, have repeatedly confirmed that our work has had no impact on water quality,” company spokesperson Jay Frank said in an email.

As OPB reported in 2023, state regulators initially balked at investigating the residents’ groundwater complaints and ignored possible permit violations by the multibillion-dollar construction materials company. The conflict eventually got the attention of federal lawmakers, who pressured regulators to vet the complaints more deeply.

The latest well test results were not a surprise to Ashley McCormick, who began testing her own water in 2022 and promptly stopped drinking it.

“I would just like to know why my water is not only bad, but getting worse,” McCormick said.

The latest tests were more dramatic than previous ones in showing her family’s well water contains levels of manganese that exceed federal health advisory limits, as well as elevated levels of iron and aluminum.

When the state sent her its findings last month, McCormick promptly reached out to the Oregon Health Authority for advice.

OHA toxicologist David Farrer responded to her email: “I would not be afraid for me or my kids to bathe in it, but we might not want to because of the grossness and dryness factors,” he said, adding, “I definitely would not recommend drinking it though, because the manganese levels are high enough to cause health concerns.”

Manganese can cause a range of problems, from annoyances like stained laundry to serious liver issues and neurological dysfunction.

“Even if you’re not in that category where it’s unsafe, [I’m] definitely not saying that people would want to drink it. It does taste bad and look bad,” Farrer said in an interview.

After two of McCormick’s three young children developed severe rashes following a bath, she decided it wasn’t worth the risk.

“I have them bathe at either my mom’s house or my grandma’s house,” she said.

This has been the status quo for years now while McCormick and many of her neighbors haul in bottled drinking water to avoid the taps. She said it’s exhausting, expensive work to keep the household running, and it no longer feels like a home.

“I feel like we’re dry camping,” she said. “I’m hoping that we can start getting some more answers.”

DEQ spokesperson Greg Svelund said Knife River’s expansion application is on hold until the company executes more water testing at the direction of the state. The round of state-commissioned testing results released Feb. 12 don’t prove the Knife River mine is the source, Svelund said, but they do show a fuller picture of the contamination.

“It’s just hard to understand yet what that might mean, until we contextualize it with the data that we still don’t have,” he said.

DEQ and Oregon’s mining regulator, the Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, said in a statement that Knife River’s testing plan is being finalized.

“We are confident data will continue to confirm our work has had no impact on water quality,” Knife River’s Frank said.

In the meantime, the state is telling residents with contaminated water about potential health risks and pointing them to resources like filtration systems. The price of installing such systems can run into the tens of thousands of dollars, and the state isn’t helping with those costs, said OHA’s Environmental Public Health Section Manager Gabriela Goldfarb.

“The policy in Oregon, and in the rest of the country, is typically that domestic well owners are responsible for their own water quality,” she said.

There are exceptions, such as in the Lower Umatilla Basin, where nitrate pollution due in part to commercial agriculture has sparked state financial support for residents left to grapple with unsafe drinking water.

“We have been assigned a different role [there] and resources to do direct assistance. We don’t have that in the Crook County context,” Goldfarb said.

While private wells don’t have the same legal protections as public water supplies, Oregon mining sites are not allowed to degrade groundwater.

DEQ is seeking funding for a more exhaustive sampling and monitoring program in Crook County, which could pin down the mine’s role in water quality, Svelund said. That $1.4M federal funding request is pending, he added.

The funding ask had gained some momentum before the political shakeup of the 2024 general election, which put Republicans in charge of both houses of Congress, but now its future looks shakier.

Before the power shift, Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley was the chair of a subcommittee that secured money for more Crook County testing. Merkley remains the top Democrat on the Senate Interior Environment Appropriations subcommittee, but he’s no longer the chair.

“He will continue to push for this project — as well as about 100 other community-initiated projects across the state — to be signed into law in the upcoming government funding package,” Merkley spokesperson Molly Prescott said in an email. “He will urge the Trump administration and his Republican colleagues to work with him to pass these critical projects, many of which support rural America.”