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Committee advances bill requiring testing of dwelling units on exempt wells in groundwater management areas
Summary
The House Committee on Rules approved amendments and forwarded House Bill 3525A to the House floor with a due-pass recommendation after adopting changes that limit testing to units in groundwater management areas and adjust the bill's operative date.
The House Committee on Rules voted to adopt the A-12 amendment and move House Bill 3525 A as amended to the House floor with a due-pass recommendation. The bill requires landlords to collect and test drinking water samples for certain contaminants when a dwelling uses at least one exempt well as a drinking-water source; it also requires landlords to provide test results to tenants and to the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) and sets requirements for testing laboratories and OHA’s handling of data.
Committee staff summarized the A-12 amendment, saying it limits the testing requirement to dwelling units located within a groundwater management area and specifies that test results submitted to OHA “might not be used by any other State agency except as provided by the measure for the benefit of the affected landlord or tenant.” The amendment also directs that any records created under the Act must note the data have not been controlled for quality and may not be used to determine location-specific groundwater quality. The amendment moves the bill’s operative date from June 1, 2026, to June 1, 2027, and requires landlords with applicable dwelling units to sample and test for all contaminants before the operative date; it authorizes OHA to take necessary implementation actions prior to the operative date, staff said.
“This bill requires landlords to collect and test samples of drinking water for certain contaminants if the dwelling unit has one or more exempt wells as a source of drinking water,” committee staff said in the summary; staff also reported the measure has minimal fiscal impact and no revenue impact.
Vice Chair Pham moved to adopt the A-12 amendment and later moved the bill as amended to the floor with a due-pass recommendation. The committee adopted the amendment and passed the motion to send HB 3525 A as amended to the floor. Committee members briefly acknowledged Representative Hartman’s office for work on the compromise language.
No formal amendments beyond the A-12 were recorded in the committee work session. The bill will proceed to the House floor; the committee record states OHA is authorized to take pre-operative actions and that landlords in affected groundwater management areas must complete testing before the operative date. The transcript does not include the underlying statutory cross-references for OHA authority, only references to the Oregon Health Authority as the implementing agency.
