Relating to water reuse; and declaring an emergency.
Summary
HB 2169 establishes Oregon policy to encourage and expand water reuse while protecting public health and the environment. The bill directs the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to create and lead an interagency water reuse team that includes the Water Resources Department, Oregon Health Authority, State Department of Agriculture, and State Department of Fish and Wildlife, with other agencies participating as requested. The team is tasked with training state staff and the public, identifying barriers to reuse projects, evaluating successful approaches from other states, proposing regulatory and statutory changes, improving interagency coordination, keeping public information current, developing technical assistance for local governments and industry, and setting goals and performance metrics.
Impact
The bill affects state administrative practice more than private law by creating a formal cross-agency framework for water reuse planning and permitting support. It also directs DEQ to identify needed changes to agency policies, internal guidance, administrative rules, and potentially state statutes to reduce barriers to reuse projects. In addition, it requires biennial reporting to legislative committees on progress toward reuse goals and increases DEQ’s General Fund appropriation by $295,126 for the 2025-27 biennium to implement the program, with the reporting requirement repealed in 2032.
Sentiment
The bill appears to have broad support and little visible opposition. It passed the House committee unanimously on the first vote, then advanced with only one dissenting vote in a later committee vote, and ultimately passed the House 40-0 and the Senate 28-1. That voting pattern suggests strong bipartisan agreement on the need to promote water reuse and improve coordination among agencies.
Contention
The main points of potential contention are not about whether water reuse should be encouraged, but how far the state should go in changing regulations, internal agency processes, and statutes to make projects easier. The bill explicitly requires agencies to identify and resolve conflicts, propose regulatory changes, and balance expansion of reuse with public health and environmental protections, which could raise concerns among regulators, utilities, or stakeholders about implementation standards, permitting complexity, and agency authority. The near-unanimous votes indicate these concerns did not rise to major opposition during passage.