State wants to charge a fee to use your own well

If you live in a rural area and use well water, you need to pay close attention to the Oregon Water Resources Department (WRD).

In a recently released internal memo prepared by WRD staff, the WRD plans to ask the 2013 Oregon Legislature to approve an “exempt use well fee” that would be charged for every rural Oregon farmer, rancher, or rural homeowner using a domestic well. The amount of the fee is not listed – you can rest assured it will be the maximum that the WRD believes the legislature will approve.

The purpose of the fee is to “secure stable funding for water resource management.” In other words, the WRD doesn’t want to rely on the state’s general fund revenues (primarily from Oregon income taxes) for their funding. Instead, they want to charge every rural Oregonian a fee to pay for their activities.

Read more at Oregon Catalyst