Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 04-25-25_FRIDAY_7AM

Episode Date: April 25, 2025

04-25-25_FRIDAY_7AM

The Bill Myer Show podcast is sponsored by Clouser Drilling. They've been leading the way in southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Clouser Drilling.com. Greg Roberts will be joining me here in a couple of minutes, and we'll be kicking around what is happening there. The war on your well water. I hate to make it sound so hypey. You know, here it is Friday.

You just like to talk about, you know, nice, happy, fluffy things. Unfortunately, we have to tell you where we are. Kevin Gill is going to join me from Clouser Drilling. C.J. Nugent from Nugent Drilling. Yeah, like Ted Nugent. Hey, cool. But anyway, it is Oregon groundwater and what is going on. bill 1154 they have a big problem with this this is warming its way through the state legislature and it seems to be a big big power grab they're going to kind of give us the the take on this and why it is as serious as a heart attack okay Michael Sellers lightning rod of controversy over there you know helping out they were you know big guy the you know the top him employee over there in Josephine

County we're gonna talk about what he's actually making he wants to clear the air on some of the controversy going on we'll give him a shot to come on the program at 8 o'clock and hopefully we'll clear the air and we'll be able to do our best to get some clarity out of this So who said this who did what who knew what when? Etc, etc. Okay all that 11 minutes after 7. Here's Bill Meyer 14 minutes after 7 Mr. Outdoors joins me here and the outdoor report usually about this time every Friday sponsored by Oregon Truck and Auto Authority on airway drive In Medford now Greg Roberts is with rogue weather. Greg Roberts is what he's known as the Medford father. Every time we talk about him and report him, he has to say he's a

Medford father, just a you know a perfect guy, doesn't cause any troubles whatsoever. Just a Medford father. Medford father. Did I say that you were a Medford father, Greg? Welcome. Yeah, I think you did. And, you know, man, okay, well, true, true, true, and true. Yeah, that news reporting has been a little irritating over a while. The Maryland father, right? Yeah, it was a rather humorous, satirical, rendering of everything we're hearing about. A guy that by his own admission is a member of MS-13. And once you say that, that's all you need to say because everything about MS-13

in terms of what they are as an organization, the things that they do is absolutely the truth. It just astounds me what gets ignored right now and the amazing amount of love shown by some political parties for the wrong people. But nothing astounds me these days, I guess. I shouldn't say astounding because it just doesn't matter. Well, it's kind of frustrating because I see people that I know where their head is, and they've got a good head on their shoulders, and they're very good common sense people,

and they're repeating this claptrap that he hasn't had due process. Oh yes, he has. Now, I'm going gonna give full credit here. I didn't know that until I heard Mark Levin say it. Oh, are you talking about the, what was it, the 2019 immigration hearing? Yes, you can take it as gospel truth, but in this day and age,

I don't willingly turn myself over to anybody. I started doing the research. Lo and behold, everything Mark Levin said about that clown is absolutely the truth. He's had due process twice. Not once, twice. And then people want to start talking about, oh, well, he's been in the country a certain amount of times. He was more than 100 miles from the border.

Well, guess what? He the country a certain amount of times. He was more than 100 miles from the border. Well, guess what? He's an MS 13 member Self-admitted MS 13 member. Yeah, I tend to look at this a little I still tend to look at I still tend to look at this much more simply though Conditions people want to throw out there. Okay, okay, Greg. Greg. Hold on I I look at this counting on people to be ignorant, to not know the facts. Greg, I still say that we're looking at this in a way too complex fashion. Do you have your green card? Are you authorized to be here? You're not? Okay.

Have a nice day. All right, here's your hearing. The other thing I would remind... And as you see the Trump administration being shot down by every federal judge that seems to draw breath these days on everything, I can't help but think that we are going to be very quickly approaching the suspension of habeas corpus because, you know, to tell everybody that, all right, you know, the Biden administration can do everything to set up the EI, but the Trump administration can't do anything to stop the EI or get rid of it. And the Biden administration can do everything to allow the invaders to come into the United States, but the Trump administration can't do anything to vet them and get them out.

We can't do that. You know, this is, we're getting to the point when they talk about the real constitutional crisis, the anarchy which has been via lawfare, I think, is getting to the point where I don't think Trump and I know this is kind of like a nuclear option, but people are actively and openly talking about suspending the writ of habeas corpus when it comes to deportation proceedings. So then it would be something as simple as do you have your green card in your visa? Oh, you don't. Have a nice day. Bye-bye. Okay? And that's all there is to it because otherwise, what the system is trying to tell us right now is that, no, you can't remove the invaders and no, the president doesn't mean anything, only the last president means something. This is insanity that we're dealing with right now.

Okay? That's how I see it. Well, that suspending writ of habeas corpus, even if it is and would be just for immigration, that would be playing right into the trap the Democrats are setting up. There are other ways to approach this because all of the judges to this point that have been doing this are on the federal level and ultimately Congress has some say over Whether they're going to authorize those districts again fund those districts again And I agree with the people that say this is how you start dealing with that problem

You can essentially just eliminate those districts wholesale or get their funding severely. You're never going to win it going through the impeachment process. And if you did suspend writ of habeas corpus, that's the only thing right now that will save the Democrats from being the Democrats. All right. All right, Greg, we'll set that aside right now. We may have a difference of opinion on that.

Let's talk about something that you are truly expert on, and that is where are we headed on weather and are we going to be... I mean, it looks like we're getting into some truly springtime weather with some showers, April showers bring May flowers. In my case, it's April showers bringing me weed after weed after weed and cheatgrass in my front yard. So there we go. That's where I find myself.

Well, the other thing that it has been bringing, and I'm so happy to see, if not rain, then at least higher humidity to knock it down, pollen. Because I'm far more sensitive to the grass and brush type pollen than I am to tree pollen. And so I was really feeling it and I woke up feeling better today and less congested than I have been because we just have the higher humidity in the air and there's been a little bit of spotty rain here,

better rain yesterday with some thunder over in Josephine County. And we're going to see those unsettled conditions continue through Saturday. We're going to be below average for temps. We're going to continue to see chances for showers and thunderstorms throughout the day today. Tomorrow that looks like more of a chance for morning into early afternoon showers. I don't think there's much thunder potential for Saturday but you know we will see Saturday improve as the day goes on and then Sunday looks like that's where the Sun reappears and we start building back into what we had been enjoying with a lot of temperatures in the 70s that will eventually be turning into mid 80s by the

time we reach Thursday and Friday next week. And so what we've done is we flipped the way the pattern had looked where we were having really winter-like weather persisting through March and into early April, and we were getting mainly a lot of days with rain and cold temps and mountain snow, now we flipped into that spring pattern where we're going to have a lot of sunny days and then we will have a few days like we're having right now with unsettled weather, but we get back into the nice weather. So that looks to continue right now pretty much through the month of May, and then things start really

drying as we move into June and July. And Pete Parsons, who is the meteorologist for Oregon Department of Forestry, his three-month outlook for May, June, and July, when you get to July, he starts stating things like July is normally the driest month of the year in Oregon and this July is shaping up to look to be dry to very dry and the potential for no measurable rainfall at all will exist in some parts of the state and we're one of those some parts of the state that he's talking about when you start looking at all the information he puts out with the graphs and stuff but a totally dry July is not unheard of here in Medford at all.

Now if we're going to talk about a totally dry July in in southern Oregon here does that include like no thunderstorms either or do we still have thunderstorm activity? Because if we're going to dry out this vegetation then we have to be even more aware of potential lightning and forest fire potential. You know even if we don't dry out the vegetation it may just take longer. We may see the onset of lightning fires later in August instead of developing in July. But if you take that on the way he's saying that, then what you would typically see would be some thunderstorm development over the mountains, but you know you just never know until events happen. So I'm not going to automatically say, oh, this looks really

bad for fire season and for smoke because right now it doesn't. I mean, we've gone through July's plenty of them where we weren't getting precipitation, but we also were not getting a lot of fire activity either. So, you know, you never really know until you get there, but right now the trend is saying and Pete's pointing it out, it looks like July shaping up to be really dry and maybe totally dry down here in Jackson Josephine counties. Hey, I wanted to ask you about a weird press release I saw, I think it was from ODF&W the other day, maybe you saw this too, but that supposedly they found what was it a Chinese muffin crab up in the Columbia

you know someplace some kind of invasive species are you familiar with that I've never heard of the Chinese muffin crab well I hadn't I hadn't either and yeah that caught my eye so right now it appears to be just that one. Appears to be, thank goodness. All right because you know that's all we need. We have problems with China in trading them. They send their muffin crabs to us. Okay what is this? That thing probably literally hits to ride over here in Bilgewater in a ship coming from somewhere that maybe wasn't even China but was someplace where... Oh by the way, by the way, I misnamed that. I think it's

mitten crab, right? Isn't it a mitten crab? Whatever it is. Anyway, it's the Chinese, we'll just call it the Chinese crab. Okay. Anyway, so Chinese crab hitches a ride in Bilgewater and then ship, probably Portland pumps out its Bilgewater and then replaces it and then when it pumped out its Bilgewater, well there goes crab that was in there and then it set loose into our ecosystem here in Oregon. So how big a problem is it? Hard to say at this point. Did they somehow just get lucky and managed to get the one Chinese crab that was there? Maybe. There's a lot of unknown. You know, we're having a lot of

trouble with red rock crabs now invading in and kind of being a competitor to Dungeness crabs up and down our coast. So you know unfortunately we have seen an invasive species crab arrive and really take hold here. Is this Chinese crab like I said is this a portent of things to come or did, like I said, did they get extraordinarily lucky and happy to catch the one that happened to be there? I'm gonna hope for the best here and hope they caught the one. Yeah, what is the problem with the mitten crab? You're talking about being invasive. What does it do? It's what it does. It's not native to the ecosystem. The first thing it's going to do is compete directly with the

far more desirable Dungeness crab, huge economic value on the Dungeness crab, so this is a big threat to that. It would also probably impact the ecosystems in a far different way. I don't really know that much about this crab. The Red Rock crab that arrived has definitely turned out to be both a major competitor with the Dungeoness and they will feed on the young Dungeoness crabs. Oh, that's serious. Okay. So if this Chinese crab kind of follows suit, it would do the same thing. And you definitely don't want to get that established. We certainly don't want

to see it get to the point where the red rock crabs have gotten to, because now I don't know how you would eliminate the red rock at this point. So hopefully, like I said, I'm gonna hope for the best. Hope they just happen to catch lightning in a bottle here and not that one crab that was loose. Yeah, we don't want that. Yankee Boy, we send mitten crab to you. We'll take care of you. Yeah, I don't think it's secret agent crab from the Chai Coms. It just, you know, the way international shipping worked, this could have been a ship that was in Vietnamese waters and got that crab when it, you know, put its bilge water in it and then it gets over here, discharges its bilge

water and there's the crab in there that nobody knew about. We've seen a lot of marine invasive species arrive around the world that way, just, you know, being unintentionally transported to different places in the bilge water and ships. All right, very good. So before we wrap up here, Greg, where would you go to have a little fun in the outdoor this weekend if you had your pick, your pick to click from Greg this weekend. I, you know, I probably I'd wait to see exactly what the shower situation will look like on Saturday but I'll tell you what, everybody I know who is a mushroom hunter, the morels have exploded out all

over the place where the snow packs are still present, where it's cooler soil temps, the morels haven't popped as much, but I'm hearing people now saying they're finding them on south-facing slopes as high as 3,500 feet out of the basin if there's no snow around and has not been to get the ground temps warmed enough to get them popping out. So for best results on finding morels, I would definitely be under 3,000 feet. I been to get the ground temps warmed enough to get them popping out. So for best results on finding morels, I would definitely be under 3,000 feet. I always tell people absolutely know if you're on private property and the easiest and cheapest way to know is to get the Onyx system on your phone. It's I think $28.95 for a year. It's well worth it if you are a Morrell

mushroom gatherer and obviously later in the year if you're a hunter because you've got to avoid trespass situations at all costs because if you get nailed the judge is not going to let you claim ignorance. I didn't know. Well that doesn't work in court and OnX will save you that. So definitely get that. But the morels, the opportunity right now on them, that's absolutely what I would be out doing and especially on Sunday where the Sun really returns and starts warming things and makes those little fungi go and shoot up out of the

surface. So yeah, for sure, morel mushroom gathering. All right, very good. Hey, Greg, great weekend to you. We'll talk to you next Friday. Be well over at Rogue Weather and keep us up on what's happening there. And by the way, when we reconvene next Friday, I'm probably going to talk about a position that most people would never believe I would take,

but the more I'm learning about the whale backpack in Northern California, most people think, I think wolves are wonderful and they should always be here. I will tell you based on what I already know and we'll discuss it at length next Friday, the whale backpack probably should be totally 100% eliminated. Wow that is different from what people I think would assume you would be coming up with and we'll talk about it then. All right thank you. Yep. All right see you then Greg. Greg Roberts over at rogueweather.com. Rogueweather.com of course he does the outdoor report every Friday which is sponsored this time by Oregon

Truck and Auto Authority on airway drive in Medford. 731, where's gold going? I don't know. It's looking pretty good at the moment. See, 3,284, it has been powering. It's been as high as close to 3,500. It's kind of bumping around between the 3,200, 3,500. What's it saying? Well, like I was talking with Todd Sheets a little while ago, lack of trust. Lack of trust. Will trust be rebuilt and will we get control of all the budgets and the Republicans in the Senate will be happy to play along with the Republicans in the House? I don't know. Looking at history, who knows? But one way or the other. And gold may be something which is good to have as part of your portfolio. When you're looking for gold, you get it from the recognized experts.

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Welcome to the Bill Meyer Show on 1063 KMED. 541-770. Actually, let's hold the calls here for just a little bit. Normally I would say, hey, go ahead and do the calls. But afternoons, we got to dig dig into and maybe we'll take calls, you know, after they end up getting talk talking about the well water, the war on well water, a pretty big serious thing here. Kevin Gill from Clouser Drilling is going to join me here in just a little bit and CJ Nugent from Nugent Drilling. and they have formed a group here because

apparently they're looking for help because the state of Oregon you're thinking that the state of Oregon would would never want to grab your private property rights in order to regulate wells and would never they would they would never do anything to harm you well you would be wrong and there's a bill out there it's a bill out there. It's Senate Bill 1154. We're gonna talk about what it does, why it's dangerous, what problems they have with it.

Naturally, they have a dog in the fight, given that they're drillers, but their customers have a dog in the fight. And if you have a well, you have a dog in the fight. And we will discuss why and what to do next. Two by four, two by eight. Who do we appreciate? Hughes Lumber.

Hughes Lumber. Tweedle Dee. I'm Jim with the Beauty Marks Salon and Glitter Bar. And I'm on KMED. 741, I appreciate you being here this morning. We're talking about your well water here. You live out in the rural areas or you're outside of a municipal water source here.

Wells matter. And of course, property rights matter too and one of the talk about that with Kevin Gill from Clouser Drilling. Hello Kevin good to have you on welcome. Good morning Bill. And we also have CJ Nugent from Nugent Drilling. How you doing CJ? I'm doing good Bill thank you. Hey now I know where Clouser is. Where are you located? Where are you? I'm in Lebanon, which is just there between Eugene and Salem, kind of right in the middle. All right. Today we're talking about Senate Bill 1154. You've sent me some notes about this. This looks about a serious as a heart attack on property rights and well rights here and Kevin you want to take the lead on this first off and tell me what is the issue here that you and CJ are teaming up and hoping to get more of the public involved in it kind of like almost a fire map type threat to our wells is that kind of the way you're looking at it or not?

It very well could be Bill and so CJ and I are both on the legislative committee for the Oregon groundwater association. We're both past presidents as well, so we volunteer a lot of time. CJ has started a group called Oregon Water Unity and he can be followed on Facebook and that's to get the word out to the public on what's going on with legislation in Oregon. This session we modifying the process for managing groundwater quality and contamination concerns, which sounds good, but the devil's in the details and you start reading through the bill and there's a lot of mission creep in here. And I'm going to let CJ get into most of the details, but I want to point out there was no sponsor that came right through the governor's office to the Senate Committee

on Natural Resources and Wildfire, chaired by Senator Golden out of Ashland. And revenue and fiscal impact, both say further analysis required. So there's a little something for us to consider. Yeah, yeah, which means we have no idea how badly it will screw a property owner or a well driller, as the case might be. That's right and you know groundwater in our area in any area there's minerals in the rocks and water picks up those minerals and so there's some implications that CJ's going to talk about here in a second for us here in this area. So that's kind of setting the table on this this whole situation. All right CJ take it away from Organ Water Unity. Okay yeah

appreciate your time. This is an 86 page bill that I have to confer down in a few minutes so bear with me I'm kind of gonna zip through it. Basically if this worries about the groundwater management areas currently there are three in the state of Oregon. One is in Umatilla, which is mainly what this bill is for, but it's almost like they've forgotten that there's two other areas. One down south in Malheur County and then also one in the southern Willamette Valley touching Lynn, Lane County and some parts of Benton County, which is an area that I drill and friends that live there and this will absolutely be devastating for those areas. But as

Kevin said, this opens up the door to where I think those areas could be changed very quickly. And after the hearing, which I was at and brought a bunch of people to participate in in opposition, Shonda Ferrari, who is the the Natural Resources Advisor for the governor, came out and said, we have many other areas that we know about and that might have groundwater quality concern areas that we will try and address basically, which is basically telling people in my opinion that there's going to be a lot more areas very quickly if this bill goes through because it cuts away, it strips away a lot of the due process

for making these areas. Okay that's really interesting. So they pass this bill or they want to pass this bill under the guise of well we have problems in the Willamette Valley and we have some problems over here out in this neighborhood and then after this is, which of course gives amazing power from what I can see here to state water regulators, they would then expand the reach. And most likely it would be into your neighborhood, it would be into southern Oregon. And then that's the way it's just a creeping power grab everywhere. Is that my assumption that I can make from this? Yeah, that is absolutely what's going on. On my group, I made a very in-depth analysis of this bill and multiple times. And I quoted Shaundra Ferrari on this. Literally, she did it right after the

hearing. And there's a quote in there. And Kevin's absolutely right. I firmly believe that within five years, the entire state will be one of these areas for some reason or another because they're talking about nitrate issues in Umatilla, but I have arsenic in the Willamette Valley. In Eugene, there's saltwater, there's arsenic. You go up north, there's contaminants up there, you go over to the coast, there's saltwater, there's arsenic. You go up north, there's contaminants up there. You go over to the coast, there's saltwater over there. Sure. Well, you even look in southern Oregon, we have volcanic soils.

Of course we're going to have arsenic sometimes to deal with in Boron. Isn't that just the natural part of living in areas with these type of soils? Absolutely. And so this is what scares me. So moving forward from that, I mean, we've kind of established that this could be a statewide thing very quickly, but this also will most likely shut down all building

outside of city limits that can't be hooked up to city water, which the trickle down effect, you know, affect builders, concrete lumber. I mean, it will, it will be like the 2008 recession times 10 for, for all small businesses outside of city limits. So it puts a basically in the control of the counties to shut down building in these areas, land, LCDC land conservation development can establish rules, which I've been a part of rules committee. So it's Kevin and it's kind of all bets are off when it makes it to rules.

And then the other thing I wanted to bring up that's really important in this bill is the original bill did have water meters in the bill. I mean, I don't know if you remember the whole water meter fiasco at the beginning of session. But that was because I raised the alarm on it because it was going to go through. But the original bill in here had water meters in it, almost exact language. And so they pulled that out in the amendment. But just to note, they still have language in here limiting water usage. My biggest question for legislators and the governor's office is, this is for groundwater

quality, why is there one sentence about water quantity? There shouldn't be. There is. Multiple areas of the bill. Now, from what I recall, according to the notes here, that it would limit you to 5,000 gallons per day maximum is all you could take, right? Yeah, and that is correct also to community wells and shared wells, and you could definitely go over that amount if you weren't careful if you were on a shared well. Oh yeah, absolutely so. Kevin, what is the commingling thing they talked about?

I wasn't, there's a part in there about commingling. What is a commingling well? What does that mean? That's a good question, Bill. So they, each well, there's different aquifers and wells. And in Oregon rules, you get to pick an aquifer to choose from. So let's say you're in an area that has an overlying gravel aquifer, it's permeable

in forests, and then you drill through that and there's water and then you go down into the bedrock, let's say like a claystone or a shale, and you hit more water. You cannot take water from both of those aquifers. Coaling would mean you grabbed both of those aquifers. Coaling would mean you grabbed both of those aquifers. So you're required if you want the shale aquifer to seal the gravel aquifer off. I didn't realize you can even do that kind of stuff. That's why I'm not a well driller. So they would do this. They would restrict 5,000 gallons per day. The meter is gone. But I think what's also interesting is that you, as a well owner,

wouldn't you be required or wouldn't you be voluntarily giving access to your property at all times when it comes to water issues? What do you think? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. This bill also gives the ability for state agencies to go on people's property, which is a direct violation of the Fourth Amendment, the U.S. Constitution. And it's unrestricted access, you say, right? Yeah, that is correct. There is no language in this bill that gives you basically the authority of the landowners to say, no, you cannot step foot on my property. Wow. So they can enter private

property now this would be a stencil though to inspect the sewage or the septic systems and the water system but right now they need a warrant to do something like that? To the best of my ability yes. When I spoke to a police officer friend of mine that's what he said. There's nothing in the only wording in this bill is within reasonable time. What's wrong with counties being granted the authority to determine if a well should be built because that's one of the concerns that that you and Kevin both have on this. Well the biggest concern that I have is for one biggest concern is people are struggling right now money-wise and there's no financial assistance for anything in this bill.

And some of the things in this bill, the language, the way it's written, they could make you abandon your septic system if it's old and redo it, your well. It also said it does require you to put a backflow prevention device. Again, there's no money involved in this at all. There's no accompanying bill that's supposed to give people money and financial assistance. So, I mean, some of these people could be on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars and they would be required under state law to do it. All right.

Now, don't you put a backflow device on right now? I know I supposedly have one at my home on city water. You have to have that, supposedly. Do we do a lot of wells without backflow on them? I wasn't aware of that. Kevin, you want to answer that? Sure. Yeah, I can answer that, Bill. So, if you have your household water line going to your to your home that's your main water supply and then you have irrigation and outdoor hose bibs you would you would by standard practice install it and I back flow device or a double check valve so that it doesn't back feed into your primary water system. Yeah and they're pretty pricey I know that what you know four or five hundred bucks a lot of times some cases installed, right? In some cases more than that. And one thing

I was going to say, Bill, water treatment has never been better or more technical. So the naturally occurring minerals that are in the rocks, like CJ talked about, whether it's, you know, calcite, hard water, iron, arsenic. There's ways to treat all that and have safe drinking water but the key is to get water tested if you have a well. Know what's in your water as one of your commercials says. All right so the but the state wants all of this power under the guise of well water quality but it's not going to really do anything about well water quality that I can tell.

It just seems to be we want to be able to come in and inspect at all times and we don't want you to build in an area if there's a well issue or what does that mean here? Like I said, there's a lot of moving parts on this bill. I'm sorry to be a little bit flat-footed on it. I can boil down a couple of points. Go ahead, C.J. No, Kevin, go ahead. Well, the biggest concern for me, they're going to give tremendous power to six state agencies, you know, DEQ, OWRD, DGAMI, or the Health Authority, and a couple of others. And basically this will circumvent, you know, the legislative branch and put all the power

with these agencies. And it's really unchecked power to do a lot of things. And so that's my biggest concern with this bill. CJ, I'm going to direct this to you. For the longest time, we were really upset. People were really upset and bothered. And I guess the wildfire map is now hopefully going to be repealed. We're told that I know it passed the Senate, you know, the repeal bill here recently.

But I can't help but think that this is yet another version of something like this. Whatever it is, if you want to live out in a rural land, we're either going to find a way to not allow you to build under the guise of water issues, or if you are building out there, we're going to be able to come in there and hassle you all we want, in essence. Is this just another example of that, or am I just being a conspiracy theory kind of thinker at the moment? No. I think you're pretty spot on there. Senator Golden is, you know, the head of the Senate

committee that this went through and he's kind of running the show here on this. How interesting. He was also running Senate Bill 762 also. I can't help it. Yes. Yes. And basically, the best outlook that I can see for folks is there won't be building if this bill goes into effect. In these areas quickly, there won't be. Unless you can hook up to a city water source, the building will be done. And I mean, I believe it's noted enough times in the bill, there's enough restrictions on it.

That's what I believe and that's going to really affect people. It's not going to give people the ability to build on their land. It does say talk about farms and so that's, you know, I share Kevin's concerns over giving the state agencies power the most. That's probably one of my biggest concerns. But my second concern is that how vague and broad this bill is and how it's just, it's so vague. And whenever a bill is vague, it can be interpreted many different ways.

Senate Bill 1154. So how do we fight that? How do people who are listening right now, I mean you raise the alarm and of course people are going oh I got you know we just got done with the wildfire map thing now what what do they do? I think personally I think this bill can be stopped. First of all people have to join my group because if this goes down to the last to the wire in the session, the only person that's covering water like I am right now is myself on Oregon Water Unity. I'm going to be following it closely. They'll be able to give an

hour notice very soon and it will go through quick. That's the first step. People need to join this group. Second step is if people need to be emailing their legislators, their senators, their house reps, they need to get in touch with the mayors, especially county commissioners. I got several county commissioners to testify on this in opposition. And there was just shy of 900 testimonies

that I got out to people in a week. And that is in my group only, it had less than 6,000 members. And that's the only, I mean, really with the super majority, the checks and balances are in rough shape right now up in Salem. But I really think that if we can, if people can band together and say, no, we can stop this, this won't be the wildfire map that goes into effect. This will send, we could stop this before it becomes to that point. I would hope that would be the case.

When it comes to a matter of politics though, is this mostly a Democrat-pushed bill or do we see bipartisan support for this? Kevin, do you know off the hands? Yeah. Yeah. So the committee makeup is three Democrats and two Republicans. One of the Republicans, Senator Nash out of the Northeast, voted for yes on this with the Democrats and Senator Girard out of Salem was the only one

that voted no, which is disappointing. There was huge opposition and huge testimony against this. This committee and many of our legislators are being described as tone deaf. People that come in and say, hey, we want to pause this and this doesn't look good. Let's take our time. Oh, that's great. And then they just send it through anyway. So it looks like mainly Democrat, mainly climate change kind of things and all of that. But CJ has got a couple of timelines and our call to action is to get ahold of our legislators, just like he said. And Bill, it's

okay if you want to post that document that I sent you those talking points if you want to post it. I will okay I will certainly post that today I'll post it on Facebook now is the Oregon Water Unity Group on Facebook or do you have it elsewhere too? It is just on Facebook currently I just started it a couple months ago right after the whole water meter fiasco thing went down. All right, very good. I really appreciate you both you know keeping us in the room on this one and it has been passed out. Do we have any idea when there might be a you know I'll vote on this on a full Senate floor? I spoke I've spoken to multiple legislators who I've become friends with since this whole water meter thing. They wanted me to stay on top of this water stuff. We'll feed you whatever we can.

And it could be anywhere towards the end of the signed I may 9th. I do believe that there were going to be amendments on this bill. So I think personally it's a thought, but I think it'll be down to the wire because there was so much opposition. It'll be right towards the end of session All right, CJ Nugent from Nugent Drilling, Kevin Gill from Clouser Drilling We appreciate you both coming on in. The website is actually just go to Facebook, Facebook.com And then just search for Oregon Water Unity and they'll keep you in the know on this particular situation And definitely want to get in touch with the state legislators. I do find it interesting that Senator Golden once again seems to be at the focal point of

this kind of an issue here in Southern Oregon, don't you? What do you think Kevin? I'll give you the final word on that. Well he's consistent. Okay, there's the quote of the day. Well, he's consistent at least. Kevin, thank you CJ. We'll have you back, okay? Be well. Have a good day, Bill. Thank you very much. Bye bye. It's KMED HD1, Eagle Point Medford, KBXG, Grants Pass. Two Dogs Fabricating is your exclusive North Star flatbed dealer and installer.

And cell phone service not provided by DISH. The Bill Meyers Show on 1063 KMED. Four minutes after eight we're gonna check town hall news here in just a moment and then we're gonna try to clear the air a bit or at least Michael Sellers is gonna do his best to clear the air about what is going on with the controversy over pay and how the negotiations have been going on in Josephine County. Of course, Simon Hare on the Budget Committee resigned the other day and then we had Andreas Bleck and Ron Smith, both commissioners, fire him from that

position. A lot of drama and a lot of finger-pointing here and so at least Michael is kind enough to talk about it. We'll try to dig into that just a little bit. And that'll be after the Kim Commando digital update all on the way. Debbie writes me this morning, Debbie Connelly writes, Hey Bill, thanks so much for having folks in here. I just, I joined their Oregon Water Unity Facebook pages. Unbelievable. So done with Golden and CoTech. We must really start fighting back enough.

This is another one of those issues where, Debbie, just as much of a hot button as the map, all of it still, no matter what they're claiming, oh, this is about well water quality and we're worried about pollution, no, I think they're ultimately worried about pollution though I think they're ultimately worried about too many people being outside of the climate friendly equitable community just my opinion Debbie just my opinion I will make that clear but you can't help but uh... but notice a trend in their legislation we don't like you living rurally you know unless you're really really really really wealthy and then you're able to jump through all the hoops that we're going to set up there. That's okay because

you know, the really, really, really, really, really, really wealthy people, that's alright, they're normally our friends. It helped us get elected. I'm just teasing and having a run. Sometimes my cynicism, I just have to tone down the cynicism here just a little bit. But I'll tell you what, we'll catch up on Town Hall News, then Kim Commando, and then let's find out what's going on in Josephine County, too.