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Good morning, Northwest.

Harney County is facing a groundwater crisis, and many residents are displeased with state regulators’ plan to fix it.

OPB’s Alejandro Figueroa leads off today’s newsletter with how locals are working with the governor’s office to avoid costly litigation and build a sustainable path forward for water use.

Also this morning, new estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show Washington’s population is booming while Oregon’s is barely changing at all.

Here’s your First Look at Wednesday’s news.

—Bradley W. Parks

Oregon policymakers, irrigators chart a path forward for the Harney Basin

In Oregon’s Harney County, farmers face a looming crisis as groundwater supplies can no longer sustain current irrigation levels.

In December, water regulators adopted a plan to address the issue, but many locals believe it overlooks their needs and threatens the agriculture-dependent economy.

Some have come to distrust the very agency in charge of managing the state’s water.

They’re now forging a partnership with the governor’s office with the hope they can avoid, or at least delay, costly litigation. (Alejandro Figueroa)

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3 things to know this morning

• Health care workers in Portland built a memorial for Alex Pretti outside the VA Medical Center in town. Federal agents shot and killed Pretti, a U.S. citizen and VA nurse, in Minnesota over the weekend. (Amelia Templeton)
• Washington state’s population appears to have increased by 73,000, clearing 8 million people for the first time in 2025. Meanwhile, Oregon saw a relatively small increase of 8,200 people and one of the slowest growth rates in the country from July 2024 to 2025. (Kyra Buckley)
• Over the weekend, the office of U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez was vandalized. The congresswoman was one of only seven Democrats to approve a funding bill last week that included money for ICE. (Lauren Dake)

Headlines from around the Northwest

• Portland councilors urge Mayor Wilson to carry out new penalties on ICE facility (Alex Zielinski)
• Man accused of shooting Portland police was wanted for armed robbery, vandalizing Black restaurateur’s storefront (Troy Brynelson)
• Oregon lawmakers might once again debate the ‘kicker’ tax rebate this year (Dirk VanderHart)
• Portland State climate report highlights rift between institutional leadership and everyone else on campus (Tiffany Camhi)
• Vancouver library board removes ‘equitable access’ from strategic plan (Erik Neumann)
• Central Oregon nonprofits and residents navigate the next phase of Deschutes Public Library bond project (Kathryn Styer Martínez)
• Proposal would give Washington agricultural workers more options to form a union (Erick Bengel)
• Flood recovery starts from the ground up for Washington farmers (Megan Farmer)

Listen in on OPB’s daily conversation

“Think Out Loud” airs at noon and 8 p.m. weekdays on OPB Radio, opb.org and the OPB News app. Today’s planned topics (subject to change):

• Exploring the meaning of ‘time immemorial’
• Southern Oregon artist explores hair as beauty standard, cultural expression
• Jefferson High School to end opt-out policy, new district boundaries to follow

Portland’s Renée Watson wins the Newbery Medal for her children’s book ‘All the Blues in the Sky’

Renée Watson’s “All the Blues in the Sky,” in which the author blends poetry and prose to tell the story of a teen confronting the death of her best friend, has won the John Newbery Medal for the year’s best children’s book.

Watson, who grew up in Portland, expressed gratitude to “every anchor that has supported me as I navigated my own grief these past few years.

“Here’s to loving and living, to grieving and remembering, to growing and most of all to letting ourselves feel joy even in the midst of sorrow,” said Watson, who now lives in Harlem and Portland. “There is much to rage against and also, there is so much to celebrate.” (Associated Press)

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News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/01/28/harney-county-groundwater-first-look/