Feds are sending millions of dollars to Umatilla, Morrow counties
By Terry Murry on Monday, January 26th, 2026 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Various branches of the federal government have approved federal funding for community-initiated projects in packages that recently were approved by Congress. The list was released by Oregon’s delegation to the U.S. Senate.
A total of $12 million is being awarded to the Oregon Army National Guard to build a 10-lane multipurpose machine gun range (MPMG) at the Naval Weapons Training Facility in Boardman. The MPMG is considered critical for the Rees Training Center in Hermiston. It will provide economic benefits through the initial construction work and future use.
The city of Pendleton will receive $1.5 million to install wind turbines and a micro-hydroelectric generation system at the Pendleton Resource Recovery Center. When completed, it will help the city achieve energy self-sufficiency at the wastewater treatment plant.
The Bureau of Reclamation gets $1 million in federal funding to begin an engineering design and fish passage assessment of the McKay Creek dam south of Pendleton. The funds are for monitoring the project as well.
The city of Hermiston is receiving $665,000 to purchase and install two backup generators on Hermiston’s regional water system (RWS). The system, which is operated by the city and the Port of Umatilla, supplies Water both to industry and residents. It currently has no power alternative in case of an outage. The generators will address that short coming.
The Oregon Water Resources Department (OWRD) gets two grants for use in the Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area (LUBGWMA) in Umatilla and Morrow counties. A total of $600,000 will be used to analyze consumptive water use in the area from 1985 through 2023. The goal is to help the state better understand the potential sources of nitrate pollution in groundwater.
The second grant to OWRD is $2 million for well inspection and construction of monitoring wells in the LUBGWMA, where there is nitrate contamination in the groundwater. The money will also be used to support the design and construction of eight new wells to fill gaps in the current monitoring network, because additional monitoring wells at different aquifer depths will help the understanding of the movement of the water and the contamination.
