Deny the Columbia River Ranch Permit!

The Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) is accepting public comments on a new factory farm proposed in Central Oregon.

Columbia River Ranch would confine 3,500 cows and use 84,000 gallons of water per day — an amount that could meet the daily indoor needs of every resident of Culver. Massive amounts of waste would threaten the nearby Crooked River and downstream Cove Palisades State Park. All of this puts residents' access to clean, safe drinking water in jeopardy.

Tell the Oregon Department of Agriculture to reject Columbia River Ranch!

Originally, the company behind his project submitted a water supply plan that undercounted the amount of water the project would use by about 50,000 gallons per day. Now they've submitted a new plan, which is still being pushed through by ODA.

The strain on water resources and the risk of water pollution is simply too great. Submit your comment and tell ODA to deny the permit application.

Feel free to personalize the message below to reflect your individual concerns with the proposed facility. Adding original comments will help show the number of people concerned with this facility and ensure your voice is heard.

Your Message

ODA

CAFO

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Oregon Department of Agriculture

{contact_data~salutation}

I urge you to deny the Large Tier 2 CAFO permit for Columbia River Ranch.

This proposed factory farm facility for Columbia River Ranch would be sited in the Upper Deschutes Basin groundwater mitigation area, where groundwater use has an impact on surface waters and instream flows. Water usage in the area is carefully monitored to ensure flows for Scenic Waterways and senior water rights are not impacted by new uses. As Central Oregon faces increasing water scarcity due to increasing population and regular drought conditions, it would be irresponsible for the Department to approve a permit for a feedlot seeking 84,000 gallons of water per day in an already strained system.

I am also concerned about the facility's proximity to Cove Palisades State Park, where Oregonians recreate on the Deschutes and Crooked rivers. If this project moves forward, ODA would be allowing a large feedlot to be built near a state park and a Wild and Scenic River and ship its vast quantities of waste to undisclosed nearby disposal sites — a move that would clearly put polluters' interests over Oregonians’.

Additionally,  the current permit conditions are inadequate to ensure that the facility is not using more than the stockwater exempt use amounts and that the permit accurately reflects the facility’s water usage. The resubmitted permit shows that ODA has failed to address water quality and quantity risks once again by:

1) Not requiring  Columbia River Ranch to keep records of purchased water;
2) Not requiring that this facility maintain records to ensure the facility does not exceed the allowed 12,000 gallon/day for “stockwatering”; and
3) Not doing further investigation before fast-tracking this revised application, glossing over the obvious error in the previous version where the applicant falsely claimed they would raise calves instead of mature cattle, and therefore underestimated their daily water needs by roughly 50,000 gallons.

Without such basic safeguards, there's no reason to assume water use will stay within legal limits — especially when the operator has already egregiously misstated the water needs to the state. ODA should deny this permit in defense of Oregonians who do not want their publicly owned water sold off to an industry with a long history of pollution and environmental degradation.

Please deny the permit for Columbia River Ranch and protect our water from factory farm pollution.

Sincerely,
{user_data~First Name} {user_data~Last Name}
{user_data~Address 1} 
{user_data~City}, {user_data~State} {user_data~Ghost Zip Code}

Sincerely,
[First Name] [Last Name]
[Your Address]

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