Prineville, Ore. — For the residents of Crook County, Oregon, what once was a quiet, rural community has transformed into a constant struggle with their most essential resource: water. Three years after concerns first arose about their well water quality, families are still grappling with the consequences of what many believe to be a man-made crisis. The McCormick family, like many others in the area, has been forced to change their entire way of life, hauling water for everything from drinking to bathing as their wells turn against them.
The problem began to surface in 2021, when locals, including Ashley McCormick, began noticing significant changes in the quality of their well water. High levels of manganese and aluminum were found, leaving residents worried about the safety of the water they relied on for daily tasks. But now, after several rounds of testing by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), new toxins have been identified in the water, intensifying fears about contamination.
“It is a lot harder than you think to have to haul in water for absolutely everything,” McCormick said, describing the hardship her family has endured since the water began to deteriorate. Her children can no longer bathe at home due to the unsafe water. “We have to go bother my poor grandmother every night after basketball practice to have our showers there because it’s not something I’m comfortable with. After what happened to Mason last time, I don’t want to put him through that again.”
Mason, McCormick’s son, suffered a painful reaction two years ago after taking a bath in the tainted water, breaking out in hives and experiencing severe itching. McCormick is left to worry about the potential long-term health effects that could have been caused by years of exposure to contaminated water.
“My biggest concern is what I have done to them unknowingly years ago when we were still drinking it,” McCormick said. “Drinking and eating, everything you do revolves around water, and we consumed a lot of it.”
The origins of the contamination have been a point of contention for years. In 2017, the Crook County Commission approved a permit for Knife River, a mining company, to extract gravel less than a mile from the McCormick’s property. The company was granted permission to mine directly into the groundwater source that supplies the area’s private wells. At the time, local officials and Knife River assured residents their water would remain unaffected.
“I remember the public hearing like it was yesterday,” said Julie Thompson, a neighbor of the McCormicks who recently spent $11,000 on a new filtration system to try to clean her water. “Nobody wanted it to happen. The room was completely full of people, and the number one question was, ‘Is this going to affect our water?’ And everybody was assured, ‘No, it will not affect your water. We’re not going to be in the water. It will all be fine.’”
Despite these assurances, many residents have become convinced that Knife River’s mining operations are to blame for the water crisis. The process of extracting gravel and washing rock could have disturbed centuries-old minerals, leading to the contamination of the water supply.
Knife River, however, has denied any responsibility for the water quality issues. In a statement last August, Chris Doan, Knife River’s operations director, said the company stands by its position that the mining activities have not impacted the groundwater quality.
“Well, our position is that Knife River has not changed the quality of the water since we have been here,” Doan said, defending the company’s operations and the safeguards in place to prevent contamination.
But for residents like the McCormicks, this explanation offers little comfort. The ongoing health concerns, including the outbreak of rashes, hives, and other skin issues from exposure to the contaminated water, have only deepened their fears. McCormick and her neighbors now live in a state of crisis, constantly having to find alternative ways to access safe water while also worrying about the long-term health consequences of the toxic substances they may have ingested.
As the crisis continues to unfold, the DEQ has promised further investigations and additional water testing, but for now, residents are left in limbo, struggling to make do with limited resources and growing frustration.
In the meantime, the residents of Crook County are left asking difficult questions: How much longer will they have to endure this crisis? And when will the responsible parties be held accountable for the damage done to their most basic necessity—water? For the McCormick family and their neighbors, the answers remain uncertain, but the hardship is all too real.
