OVERDRAFTING OREGON: THE CASE AGAINST GROUNDWATER MINING

摘要

People in the western United States rely on groundwater for agricultural, domestic, and conservation uses. Achieving balance among these often-competing interests is largely left to state legislatures and agencies. Oregon regulates groundwater according to a permit system based on prior appropriation, In some groundwater-dependent areas of the state, wells are drying up, and stream-levels and water tables are dropping. Oregon's aquifers are at risk of overdraft. Still Oregon's Water Resources Department has been approving new-use permits, allowing additional groundwater withdrawals, when it does not have sufficient information to determine that water is available. This Comment analyzes Oregon's governing statutes and regulations, and concludes that Oregon law prohibits groundwater mining and that Department's policy runs afoul of that prohibition. Comparing Oregon's groundwater law to other western states' law, the Article suggests that Oregon's legislature or the Water Resources Department should incorporate groundwater management mechanisms from these states to better enforce Oregon's groundwater mining prohibition.