Editorial: Why does it have to be hard to get drinking water data from DEQ?

The concern is nitrates are leaching from septic systems into groundwater. Porous soils, a shallow groundwater table and little rainfall in southern Deschutes County can conspire to make septic tanks into environmental bombs. Their target can be wells for drinking water.

The Department of Environmental Quality said its concerns are reinforced by its most recent well testing data. It brought up the data in a letter to county commissioners. Commissioner Patti Adair mentioned wanting to see it.

When we asked about it, the DEQ originally told us the data included samples that exceeded the federal government’s maximum contaminant level. It later told us it did not.

We asked for the data. We made a public records request on Feb. 19 for the most recent data and received it on March 11. It was a spreadsheet of data of the some 60 domestic wells that were tested in the spring of 2023. There was no accompanying analysis. The department will apparently do that later after further sampling.

There are two specific thresholds of contamination that would raise concern. The first is 7 milligrams per liter That would raise alarm bells for the department. If wells showed that at consistent levels, the region may be declared a groundwater management area. The state would set up an action plan to reduce contamination.

The second is 10 milligrams per liter. That is the federal government’s maximum contaminant level. The national standard was set at that level to prevent what is commonly called blue baby syndrome, which can reduce oxygen to a baby’s brain. There are other worries about drinking water with high levels of nitrates in it, too.

In fact, none of the wells — zero — had more than 10 million parts per liter of nitrates. The highest concentration was 7.12 million parts per liter. Most samples had much less.

The DEQ did a second round of testing in 2023 but that data is not available, yet. There are also thousands of datapoints from previous testing that show nitrates in groundwater in the area. Repeated testing is important to get a picture of how levels are changing over time.

So, back to DeBone’s question. How do you answer it?

The short answer is that if a family gets water from a private well in southern Deschutes County, it should be tested every year.

The longer answer is that there is a potential threat. There are nitrates in the groundwater. And the concentration is believed to be growing as more homes are built with septic systems and old septic systems continue to leach nitrates into the soil. “Continued unrestricted development in the area will reach a tipping point that may be difficult or impossible to recover from due to groundwater contamination which will then require additional regulation and funding to address,” DEQ says.

We told DEQ we were perplexed why it should take a public records request for the public to know details of the state’s testing data shows. Greg Svelund, a regional solutions center liaison for the DEQ, offered an explanation. If DEQ finds that a well exceeded safe levels, the owner of the well is informed. For the general public, he said the results from any round of testing are not as important as the overall testing picture over time. That data, he said, suggests the problem is coming.