Police & Courts Federal judge allows class action over eastern Oregon water pollution to move forward

Eastern Oregon residents who have lived for years with contaminated water can move forward with a class action lawsuit against the Port of Morrow and large food processors in the area, a federal judge ruled.

U.S. District Judge Michael Simon on Friday issued an order denying a motion from the Port of Morrow and five businesses to dismiss Pearson v. Port of Morrow. Several Morrow County residents who cannot drink their nitrate-contaminated water filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in February 2024, and it has since expanded into a class action lawsuit potentially encompassing thousands of other area residents. A three-week jury trial is scheduled to begin May 3, 2027.

The suit names 17 defendants for allegedly polluting a groundwater aquifer for years with fertilizer-laden wastewater collected from industrial food processors and data centers at the port. That water was sent out and over-applied to area farm fields for years, billed as a beneficial waste-water reuse program that the plaintiffs said became a toxic dumping scheme.

The port, Lamb Weston, Madison Ranches, Threemile Canyon Farms, Portland General Electric and Columbia River Processing asked Simon to dismiss the case. They argued the residents suing had not shown widespread damage directly linked to their actions, or deliberate conspiracy on behalf of the port and its tenants, and that they had exceeded the state’s two-year statute of limitations to sue over negligence.

https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2026/06/10/repub/federal-judge-allows-class-action-over-eastern-oregon-water-pollution-to-move-forward/