Attorney Appointed Water Committee Chair

Attorney Sarah Liljefelt is honored to be serving as the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association’s Water Resources Committee Chair. She started this role at the beginning of 2020. Sarah has been an OCA member for many years. She is also very involved with the Oregon CattleWomen. With the Oregon CattleWomen, she served as a former Vice President and is the current Legislative Committee Chair.

In her new role, Sarah is using her water law expertise to represent OCA’s members’ interests alongside staff and leadership. She is closely following the Governor’s proposed 100 Year Water Vision to ensure agriculture infrastructure is adequately included. This is necessary to support a resilient agricultural sector and food and fiber supply in the future. She also drafted comments to proposed agency actions involving water quality. That effort includes comments to the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s proposed changes to Water Quality Area Management Plans. Similarly, she drafted comments to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality’s draft 2018-2020 Integrated Report.

As related to water litigation and legislation, Sarah is providing recommendations to OCA regarding involvement in current water resources cases that may impact Oregon water users for many years to come. She also prepared written testimony and appeared at the State Legislature in Salem to testify on water bills that would negatively impact Oregon water users. For a summary of the water bills of concern in the 2020 short session of the Legislature, see OCA’s article here.

Sarah is committed to representing the interests of water users in the West. She is excited to use her knowledge and experience to help OCA’s members navigate the many water resources challenges they face in order to support the cattle industry.