Water conservation efforts are long overdue in Oregon’s water basins, according to two lawmakers.
State Representatives Ken Helm and Mark Owens say that the Oregon Water Resources Department needs to stop issuing new water rights until more research is conducted. Due to record drought, farmers across the seven basin states, who use the majority of the water from the Colorado River, have been left scrambling to ration water resources.
The lawmakers want to know more about the flow of water into and out of Oregon’s twenty basins each year so that proper strategies can be put into place.
