Salem Files Motion For Preliminary Injunction To Further Protect Drinking Water - 08/21/26
SALEM, Ore. — As part of our ongoing efforts to ensure drinking water for Salem residents and businesses remains clean, plentiful and safe, we are taking further legal action to prevent the planned first deep drawdown of Detroit Reservoir this fall unless certain safeguards are put in place.
Today, the City of Salem today filed a motion for preliminary injunction in U.S. District Court to stop the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ planned drawdown this year or to not allow the drawdown to continue if the resulting level of sediment prevents us from filtering and processing the water.
“While our team has made every effort to ensure we can provide drinking water during a drawdown, the risks to our system need to be mitigated before such a drastic measure is taken,” said Krishna Namburi, Salem’s city manager. “I’m hopeful the court will help us protect our ability to serve our 220,000 water customers this fall.”
The City initially filed a lawsuit July 8 against the Corps challenging the Corps’ intended drawdown of Detroit Reservoir, a critical water source for Salem.
If successful, the motion for preliminary injunction would prevent the Corps from starting the process of deep drawdowns until final decisions on the initial case is made. The request for a preliminary injunction might also require the Corps to stop any drawdown if sediment levels reach a certain level that would cause irreparable harm to the City’s water treatment capabilities.
For more than a year, the City of Salem has actively engaged with the Corps, providing detailed feedback and proposing measures designed to protect and preserve the quality and quantity of Salem’s drinking water — not only today, but for future generations. Among the City’s key requests was a safeguard to pause or stop the drawdown when the amount of sediment in the North Santiam River harms Salem’s water treatment systems and would cause those systems to shut down.
Despite those efforts, the Corps is planning to proceed with the drawdown without incorporating these essential protections into their plan. The City of Salem argues that the Corps has also failed to fulfill its federal obligation to publish a study of the impacts of previous drawdowns, and to apply federal law in its analysis of the proposed drawdown.
The City of Salem is responsible for supplying safe and reliable drinking water to about 220,000 residents, as well as hospitals, schools, businesses and other critical infrastructure. Our service area includes the City of Turner, two water districts and portions of unincorporated Marion and Polk counties. We also provide water in sufficient quantities for firefighting and other emergency needs. This is the only emergency source of drinking water for the City of Stayton and the City of Keizer.