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Portland, Oregon | November 12th 2020

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grants approval on Oregon’s 2018/2020 Integrated Report.

Oregon water quality status and water impairment are what is being reported on for the Integrated Report.

Key Improvements in the 2018/2020 Integrated Report:

The Integrated Report provides a database for Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality to determine water quality and therefore is instrumental in the Clean Water Act and other water quality control regulatory programs. Approval by the U.S. EPA legitimizes the system at a higher level.

youth-water-testing-Periwinkle-Creek-Ocean-Blue
1
Testing assessments increased from just being assessed at headwaters to now being assessed throughout the path the water bodies travel all the way to the mouth. This provides information on how water bodies change as it flows through various locations.
2
6.5 million rows of data were assessed thanks to a more streamlined data processing system that was improved from the earliest 2004/2006 Integrated Report.
3
Temperature, dissolved oxygen, and E. Coli are the most common factors throughout the assessments as being the cause for water impairment.
4
Water impairment has increased from 33% in 2012 to a current 44%.
5
Thorough data collection for temperature is not attainable, so the Impairment of Fish and Aquatic Life report is considered unsupported and in fact is the most used unsupported finding.

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