HRVRC Endorses Water Protection Ballot Measure

Vote YES on Measure 14-55

Ballots for the May 17 election should be landing in voters’ mailboxes any day now. HRVRC encourages a YES vote on Measure 14-55 which prohibits commercial bottled water production in Hood River County.  Read our endorsement from the official Voter Pamphlet: Water Ballot measure endorsement.

HRVRC Board Votes to Endorse Water Protection Ballot Measure 14-55

The board of the Hood River Valley Residents Committee voted decisively at our January meeting to endorse the citizen-initiated Hood River Water Protection Measure which helps to safeguard the future of our county’s water supply. Sponsored by the Local Water Alliance, the countywide measure prevents large-scale bottling and export of public water and will go to county voters in May.

“Water is the currency of our county’s future,” said board President Polly Wood. “This measure helps protect that future and our legacy. Forward-looking land-use decisions and vigilant water use are inseparable – especially in a farming community; All the more so with Oregon’s 19-county drought emergency barely behind us and clearly more water scarcity on our horizon,” she said.

In 1977, when HRVRC formed, its members strongly believed that a resort developer’s bid to rezone the upper valley for one-acre lots would have a profound and irreversible impact on everybody in Hood River County – not just upper-valley orchardists. A countywide vote stopped the rezone. Today, we concur with the compelling case made by the Local Water Alliance that a 100-million gallon/year bottled water plant using public water is a game changer for our whole county with fallout far beyond the sphere of Cascade Locks