Town hall scheduled to discuss commercial use of domestic wells

Friends of Family Farmers and Water League are hosting a town hall June 11, 6 p.m. at the Fruitdale Grange, 1440 Parkdale Dr, Grants Pass.
It’s time to support our local farmers who grow food for our CSAs, fruit stands and farmers’ markets!
We invite everyone to learn about why Oregon began cracking down on one-half acre gardeners who use their home wells to grow food to feed their neighbors (you).
The state never enforced the 1955 law against domestic well users watering their one-half acre Victory Garden. Before that, it was legal to sell your local plants and produce.
Oregon permits watering an one-half acre lawn or garden from your well, but you cannot sell one tomato. So the law is not about water volume; it’s about shutting down garden commerce.
We’ll discuss what the law was before 1955, what the law is today, and the incredulous reasons why the state began enforcing the law. We’ll also discuss your ideas on changing the law to support local produce growers.
Think about this: All domestic wells in Oregon use only 4% of groundwater pumped annually – that’s for all home uses, including lawns and gardens! Meanwhile, large-scale industrial agriculture uses 82% of groundwater pumped annually! That’s 20 times as much water. For context – municipal water supply systems service 80% of all Oregonians and use just 10% of groundwater pumped annually.
It gets worse: Oregon exports 80% of all agricultural products, so the 4.2 million residents do not “eat” that much irrigation by large-scale industrial agriculture. The small one-half acre gardeners who sell you local produce do not harm aquifers by using their exempt-use domestic wells – they are such a small fraction of all irrigation.
We ask: Why does Oregon allow domestic wells users 5,000 gallons per day for commercial/industrial uses so long as those uses are not for watering your one-half market garden? 5,000 GPD is twice as much water needed for one-half acre!
See Water League’s extensive research and assessment of the law, history, and our conclusions on the law and enforcement actions sent to Oregon officials:
*https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IdCi5zRG22KqlF4EqshgSMnHzF06vPIK/view? usp=drive_link
*Town Hall web page: https://www.waterleague.org/protect-small-farm-access-to-water/
*Link to the Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/share/fpWjyRLzxkNxVSEo/