What to know about the Lane County Watersheds Bill of Rights

Lane County voters will decide in May whether to approve an ordinance that would establish new legal rights for watersheds and allow residents to enforce those rights in court.

Ballot Measure 20-373, also known as the Lane County Watersheds Bill of Rights, qualified for the ballot in September after petitioners collected more than 14,000 signatures. Supporters say the measure, which is backed by a handful of local environmental groups, will expand residents’ ability to protect watersheds and clean water through legal action.

A burgeoning local coalition led by the Eugene and Springfield chambers of commerce has opposed the measure due to worries it is overly broad and opens the door to lawsuits against small business owners and public entities. 

The measure’s petitioners are pursuing an ordinance, or local law, rather than a county charter amendment after they previously brought forward a charter amendment against aerial herbicide spraying that was struck down by a circuit court judge for being too broad. 

Here’s what you need to know about the measure:

What does it do?

Measure 20-373 creates new legal rights for watersheds and clean water in Lane County as part of the global “rights of nature” movement. It asserts that watersheds “have the right to exist, flourish, regenerate and evolve” and that residents “have the right to affordable clean water, free from harmful contamination.” 

The measure states that Lane County residents are responsible for defending those rights because existing water protection laws enacted by the government that allow “voluntary compliance or directly permit pollution by entities” are insufficient. It argues that those “less protective” state, federal and international laws should not preempt the measure. 

The measure also holds corporate, government and other business entities civilly liable for violating those rights. 

If there is “evidence” of a violation of the rights in the ordinance, or if there is a “danger of damage” resulting from corporate, government or business activities, then any Lane County resident and any “watershed, ecosystem or natural community” in the county can sue the governments or businesses in the county’s circuit court. 

The measure doesn’t detail what counts as “evidence” or “danger of damage,” though it uses Oregon state law’s definition of “pollution.”

In court, residents could ask judges to cancel or change government authorizations such as permits or contracts to reduce or eliminate damages. 

They could also ask judges to require the government to take steps to prevent or fix actual and potential rights violations, even without “scientific certainty or full evidence of the risk.” If the plaintiffs win, they can recover legal costs and attorney fees.

Violators must pay costs to restore the environment to its previous condition and would face an additional civil penalty equal to 1% per day of the total restoration cost from the time the damage is reported until it stops. For example, if damage deemed to cost $1 million was reported Jan. 1, and a court decision occurred Dec. 31, a company would be liable for $3.65 million in damages on top of the initial $1 million.

Wait, what’s a watershed?

The National Oceanic Service defines watersheds as land areas that channel rainfall and snowmelt to creeks, streams, and rivers, and eventually to outflow points like reservoirs, bays and the ocean. 

For example, in Lane County, groundwater and snowmelt drain from the Cascade mountains into the McKenzie watershed, eventually flowing down into the Willamette Valley, and into the Willamette River. The McKenzie River supplies drinking water to the Eugene and Springfield region’s roughly 400,000 residents.

The Eugene Water & Electric Board concluded in a February 2025 report that the river’s overall water quality “remained excellent” in 2024, though it faced “major challenges” during the past several years, including post-wildfire impacts and pollution from urban runoff — water that flows over impervious surfaces, catching contaminants. 

What is the measure’s history?

The measure stems from a previous proposed ballot measure to ban aerial spraying of herbicides, said Michelle Holman, chief petitioner for Measure 20-373. 

In 2018, petitioners collected enough signatures to place an aerial spray ban on the ballot. However, Lane County Circuit Judge Karsten Rasmussen ruled the proposed ballot measure could not proceed to a vote, stating it violated the separate vote requirement, which states a proposed county charter amendment must embrace a single subject, per reporting by The Register-Guard.

“Instead of doing a spray ban that would be a charter amendment, we took the route of a simple ordinance,” Holman told Lookout Eugene-Springfield. 

She said the reason petitioners initially took the charter amendment route is that it has a higher standard for being overturned and can only be overturned by a vote of the people. An ordinance can be overturned by the Board of County Commissioners.

She said the measure is informed by other “rights of nature” initiatives, a movement first recognized in law after organizing by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. The organization is working closely with petitioners to support Measure 20-373 by providing legal assistance and grassroots organizing, Holman said.

What is a ‘rights of nature’ initiative? 

The “rights of nature” movement calls for the recognition and protection of legal rights of nature, including ecosystems and species, according to the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights, which works to advance rights of nature legal protections around the world.

Rights of nature laws recognize nature as a living entity with rights to exist, flourish, regenerate, evolve and be restored, and they create mechanisms for people and governments to defend these rights on behalf of and in the name of nature, the nonprofit organization states. 

Frank Bibeau, a tribal attorney who works with the Spokane-based Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights, has endorsed the Lane County Watersheds Bill of Rights. He called “rights of nature” a protection mechanism. 

“When ‘rights of nature’ is used properly … when I use it, and I see other people using it, they’re using it to protect the environment,” he told Lookout. “They’re using it to try to get an injunction against something that’s harming the environment or something that’s harming an animal or a bird or a plant in the environment.”

Bibeau and other tribal attorneys filed action against the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in tribal court in 2021 over its issuance of a permit to a corporation to use 5 billion gallons of water in the construction of an oil pipeline. The complaint named manoomin (wild rice) as a plaintiff because the White Earth Band of Ojibwe had adopted a “Rights of Manoomin” law to recognize the rights of wild rice and the fresh water resources and habitats on which it depends.

Who’s in favor?

Community Rights Lane County, a grassroots nonprofit working to empower local rights, launched Protect Lane County Watersheds, the campaign supporting the ballot measure. Holman, one of the measure’s chief petitioners, is the organization’s founder.

Eight environmental groups have endorsed the measure as of Monday. The list includes the Pacific Green Party; environmental art activism group Emerald Curtain Collective; the Washington-based Cascadia Climate Action Now; and grassroots nonprofit 350 Eugene.

Holman said the ballot measure is meant to curtail corporate harms deemed insufficiently regulated by the government, like clear-cut logging and aerial spraying by timber companies. 

“We think it’s really wrong that big corporations have more right and privilege to do harm in our communities than we have to protect ourselves from those harms,” Holman said. “Just because it’s legal doesn’t make it right.”

Protect Lane County Watersheds’ website says “big campaign money” and “corporate interests,” particularly those of timber, have caused Oregon’s state government to rebuff needed watershed protection efforts. 

Rob Dickinson, another leader with the Protect Lane County Watersheds, addressed opponents’ concerns during public comment at EWEB public meetings in February and March. Courts already have tools to dismiss “frivolous claims,” meaning organizations that treat watersheds responsibly are on “solid ground,” Dickinson said. 

He also countered criticisms that the measure’s language is too broad.

“The First Amendment doesn’t spell out every circumstance, what you can say, what you can’t say, where you can say it, or every limit,” Dickinson said. “It sets a principle that courts apply to real situations. Broad does not mean unworkable. Broad often means durable and adaptable.”

The PAC supporting the ballot measure has disclosed about $8,000 in campaign contributions so far. 

Who’s opposed?

Protect Our County, a coalition of businesses, organizations and individuals, is urging residents to vote no on the measure. Political consulting firm PNW Strategies is leading the effort, backed by the Eugene and Springfield chambers of commerce. 

The coalition so far includes the Realtors trade associations in Eugene and Springfield, the National Electrical Contractors Association, and at least 10 local elected officials, including Lane County Commissioner Pat Farr, Springfield Mayor Sean VanGordon, Florence Mayor Rob Ward and two Eugene city councilors.

EWEB commissioners also came out against it in a unanimous vote earlier this month, citing input from the public utility’s legal counsel. Before the vote, commissioner Sonya Carlson said the measure’s “undefined terms,” expanded standing to sue, “fee-shifting provisions,” daily penalties, and the bill’s potential conflicts with state and federal law were worrisome to EWEB’s lawyers.

Betsy Schultz of PNW Strategies, along with the Eugene chamber’s president, Brittany Quick-Warner, and Springfield’s chamber president, Vonnie Mikkelsen, argue the measure’s “broad and vague” language introduces increased regulation and liability for public agencies and businesses of all sizes, risking lawsuits that could indirectly cost taxpayers in an already-tight budget environment. 

“An ordinance like this opens up a Pandora’s box of options for folks who don’t want to see anything happen in our community,” Schultz said. “While I completely respect the proponent’s intent, that is not how this is written, and it’s not how it’s going to be used.”

For example, the opponents said, an at-home piano teacher could get sued for putting moss killer on their roof, or a local government could be taken to court after one of its fleet vehicles is spotted dripping oil on the roadway. 

Holman said the measure is intended to target “big, egregious harm-doers,” not public agencies like EWEB, though the measure doesn’t explicitly say that.

There are two PACs opposing the measure: Protect Our County, which hasn’t yet disclosed its fundraising; and the Oregon Business & Industry Issues PAC, which led a successful opposition effort against a proposed statewide corporate tax increase in 2024 and has disclosed more than $35,000 in contributions so far this year. 

Springfield Mayor VanGordon said he thinks the measure is “well-intentioned but not well thought out.”

He said the measure could affect the city’s ability to fund public services and could force cities to raise fees on ratepayers. 

“Urban areas in Lane County would potentially be impacted or are subject to suit around it, especially on places like stormwater and wastewater, where we are regulated under federal permits,” VanGordon said. “And we have significant ratepayer dollars on the line.”

What do environmental groups say? 

The McKenzie River Trust, a nonprofit land trust formed to protect habitats and lands in the McKenzie River basin, is not taking a position on the measure, Executive Director Joe Moll said, citing the organization’s long-standing practice of not taking positions on measures. 

“We want to be able to work with everybody,” Moll told Lookout Eugene-Springfield. “And if we take a position on a measure of any kind, but particularly measures that are charged, we align ourselves with one side, and we lose access to conversations with that other side.”

He said there’s hyperbole around the measure, “threatening economic decline, threatening the loss of clean water.” 

“Irony is, everybody’s looking for the same thing,” Moll said. “Everybody wants clean water, healthy watersheds. And the argument is over, how you do that? How much regulation is needed? How that regulation works? What sort of incentives might there be?”

“This underlying idea of, how do we restrain ourselves relative to our impacts on the natural world, is a fundamental issue that we really are glad that people are engaging in,” Moll said. 

Moll said the organization hosts events that conceptually identify with the rights of nature framework, such as the Living River Celebration and Upstream events, “where we’re talking about what it means to live in a community where what people do upstream affects people downstream.”

“This underlying sense that a river is very much alive, and not just this thread that people see, it underpins everything we do,” Moll said.

“The shift to, how do you turn that into a governance tool, is where we’re scratching our heads,” he said. “How do you take what ultimately is a sense of restraint on human activity, to say we recognize that we have impacts, how do we restrain ourselves? Can we do that in a way that is nonregulatory, or if it’s regulatory, doesn’t end up in court battles?”

He said that restraint requires less divisiveness and a more collaborative cultural change.

The McKenzie Watershed Council, a nonregulatory advisory body, has also not taken a position on the initiative, Executive Director Jared Weybright said.

Emily Matlock, a spokesperson for Beyond Toxics, said the organization could not endorse the measure because it signed on to the Private Forest Accord in 2022. That document outlines changes to Oregon’s forest laws governing private timberlands negotiated by forest sector companies and conservation and fishing organizations. 

The accord bans signatories from supporting or initiating new proposals to regulate aerial pesticide applications in Oregon forestlands until either the habitat conservation plan process ends or Dec. 31, 2027, whichever comes first. 

Other local environmental groups that signed the accord include Cascadia Wildlands and Oregon Wild.

Beyond Toxics endorsed the 2018 Freedom from Aerial Herbicide charter amendment.