An Oregon farm reached a $6.2 million settlement agreement with a group of residents living in Morrow and Umatilla counties this week, in a federal lawsuit accusing the farm and several other businesses of polluting the groundwater in the Lower Umatilla Basin.
As part of the deal, attorneys representing residents who initially filed suit in 2024 will drop legal claims against Madison Ranches.
FILE - Central pivot irrigation waters a crop at an unnamed farm south of Boardman, Ore., on July 24, 2026
Antonio Sierra / OPB
Madison Ranches grows onions, corn, alfalfa hay and other crops on roughly 21,000 acres in Morrow and Umatilla counties, according to court documents.
“We appreciate Madison Ranches’ commitment to the community as shown in this settlement. Rather than fighting about who made the mess, Madison Ranches stepped up to help address the nitrate pollution problem. But our work is not over,” Steve Berman, an attorney representing the residents, said in a statement.
Residents are still continuing the lawsuit against Lamb Weston Holdings, the Port of Morrow, Threemile Canyon Farms, Portland General Electric and Columbia River Processing.
The case is scheduled to go to trial in 2027 after a federal judge largely denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss the lawsuit in June.
The residents suing are seeking compensation, an environmental remediation program paid by the defendants and a medical monitoring program to diagnose and track the health of residents exposed to nitrate-contaminated water.
Under the settlement agreement, Madison Ranches will pay $6.2 million into a settlement fund. That fund will help residents dependent on private wells for drinking water pay to install water filtration systems, dig deeper wells or help pay water bills if they choose to connect to city water systems.
The settlement still needs to be approved by the federal court. As part of the agreement, Madison Ranches does not admit to contributing to the nitrate problem.
“There is without a doubt a nitrate problem in this community dating back decades. The [Oregon Department of Environmental Quality] recognized the problem when I was in grade school,” Jake Madison, the president of Madison Ranches, said in a statement. “We have been involved in trying to find solutions to this issue for decades, and rather than continue to litigate, we chose to put our resources towards a solution.”
Madison said the farm will continue to use practices proven to minimize nitrate pollution, such as testing the soil on its fields before planting and after harvests, rotating crops and measuring the nitrogen content of fertilizers before applying them on fields.
The Oregon Department of Agriculture already requires farms to follow some of those practices under a set of rules the agency adopted earlier this year.
Many residents in the 550-square-mile area designated as the Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area, or LUBGWMA, rely on domestic private wells for drinking water, but over the last few years, some have had to use bottled water for drinking, cooking and bathing to avoid nitrate contamination.
Nitrate is colorless, odorless and tasteless, and drinking it in excessive amounts can lead to miscarriages, respiratory infections and thyroid dysfunction. It can be especially harmful to infants.
The decades-long crisis has long been linked to the nearby food processors and farms that use nitrogen-rich fertilizers that then seep into the Lower Umatilla Basin.
In March, Amazon Data Services agreed to a $20.5 million settlement over allegations its data centers contributed to the nitrate problem in the region.
That settlement, which came out of a similar lawsuit, is also pending court approval.
Amazon has denied that it contributed to the nitrate crisis.
