H2OEO hires executive director
By Terry Murry on Friday, April 26th, 2024 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
LOWER UMATILLA BASIN – Water for Eastern Oregon, also known as H2OEO, has hired Justin B. Green to be its executive director. Green is an environmental policy and regulatory consultant whose firm is located in Portland. He will lead the organization’s efforts to provide safe drinking water and curb groundwater nitrate contamination in the Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area.
Prior to 2022, Green served as the water quality administrator for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. He approved the second action plan to address nitrate concentrations in that area while at DEQ.
“I’m really excited to provide my background and experience to address both the acute drinking water issue and longer-term groundwater issue we are experiencing in the basin,” Green said in a prepared statement. “There are a number of things that are being done today and a number of things we can be doing in the very near future to focus on these challenges. It’s going to take everybody working together and building a level of trust for us to come up with durable solutions backed by the best available science.”
The Lower Umatilla Groundwater Management area consists of the northern portions of Morrow and Umatilla counties. Its long-term goal is to reduce groundwater nitrates includes DEQ monitoring at 14 food processing and animal feeding sites and monitoring more than 100 well sites.
For more information about Water for Eastern Oregon, visit https://www.h2oeo.org/.
