Although it may have flown under the radar, a simple rule change in Oregon’s water use laws that took effect at the beginning of this year has made it legal for growers of small backyard gardens to water their crops without a water right while also selling their produce.
The change allows irrigation of up to a half-acre garden or up to 3,000 gallons of water per day, whether the garden is non-commercial or commercial, without a water right. Previously, this exemption for water rights requirements only applied to non-commercial gardens.
The change still does not permit irrigation of marijuana or hemp crops for commercial purposes.
Christopher Hall, co-founder of the Cave Junction Farmers Market and co-founder and Executive Director of Water League, which engages the public in water stewardship issues, said that the lack of exemption for commercial was “unjust”. He worked with a group called Friends of Family Farmers to help get the law changed.
“I got together with Friends of Family Farmers, and they went and held community meetings across the whole state, trying to get small farms involved in lobbying and building support for this,” Hall said, “We rented the [Illinois Valley] Grange and had our own little meeting in June of 2024.”
Hall said that he advocated to keep the ask to the Oregon Legislature a simple one.
“We asked them to do one thing: Take out the word ‘commercial’,” Hall said.
For 70 years, from 1955 to when it was changed last year, Oregon’s water law required water rights for such a usage, meaning that countless backyard farmers who sold their bounty at farmers’ markets or farm stands were violating Oregon water law.
For most of that time, this law was not enforced, but, just a few years ago, as water allocation concerns increased, the Oregon Water Resources Department began proactively enforcing the law.
“[In 2024] OWRD acknowledged that they had overappropriated water rights across the state,” Hall said, “and made it almost impossible to get a water right for groundwater.”
That year, backyard farmers in the Willamette Valley began receiving notices that they were violating water law. Mike McCord, a region manager with OWRD at the time, said that officials were using aerial photography and on-the-ground observations to find out which farmers and properties were selling produce.
But, the enforcement actions never reached the Illinois Valley, and, the next year, the Oregon Legislature changed the law, at least in part thanks to the work of Water League and Friends of Family Farms.
“The real win is that there’s no longer a monopoly by the large-scale growers on water rights,” Hall said.