The Strategic Implementation Areas (SIA) initiative concentrates technical and financial resources to agricultural areas to address water quality concerns and includes four key components:

1. Documenting compliance with Oregon’s agricultural water quality regulations.
2. Voluntary, incentive-based conservation.
3. Monitoring to track water quality and landscape conditions.
4. Collaborative partnerships.

The report provides an overview of the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s (ODA) water quality program, the SIA initiative, and the 2014-19 SIA progress report.

In 2015, ODA’s SIA initiative was selected to pilot the state’s coordinated streamside management approach. This method brings together local government, state agencies, and federal partners with similar water quality objectives to solve local concerns and improve native fish habitat in a coordinated and partnered approach.

The SIA process uses voluntary and regulatory measures to provide the greatest benefit to water quality. It supports and encourages innovation and local solutions while ensuring landowners comply with water quality regulations. The process includes an ODA compliance evaluation of agricultural lands, landowner engagement, technical assistance, monitoring, and ODA follow up with landowners until water quality concerns are resolved.

Progress described in this report is from both open and closed SIAs representing the first six years of SIA implementation; work is ongoing in many SIAs and the data presented in this report is a running total of what has been accomplished through December 2019.