October 7, 2022 11:10 a.m.

On Friday, Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley pressed the Bureau of Reclamation to prioritize Oregon as the agency develops its plans for the drought relief resources that Congress recently provided in the Infrastructure and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.

In a letter to Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton, the senators urged the BLM “…to provide critical funding to areas in Oregon that have been devastated by the historic, multi-year, extreme drought conditions”. The Senators said 23 Oregon counties have US Department of Agriculture disaster designations and hundreds of thousands of Oregonians have been directly harmed by drought. Their letter said, “Communities and irrigation districts are continuing to invest in water conservation improvements, however funding is becoming hard to come by with the persistent drought conditions”. Wyden and Merkley said the number of projects that need to be completed to address the drought emergency has far outpaced local funding sources.

The full release is linked: https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-merkley-urge-federal-government-to-deliver-drought-relief-to-oregon