PENDLETON — Commissioners from Umatilla and Morrow counties convened for a joint meeting Thursday, Oct. 21, discussing projects and issues that cross county boundaries.

The topics included a need to preserve critical groundwater areas amid expansion, a drop off facility for those experiencing a mental health crisis, and finding funds for housing for workers in the region.

Umatilla County Commissioner George Murdock said the boards heard a report from J.R. Cook, the founder and director of the Northeast Oregon Water Association. Murdock said the officials discussed how they can find new ways and better practices for using less water as communities expand.

“We use a lot of water for irrigation,” Murdock said. “We continue to find better practices that are more efficient and utilize less water, because we have to … It’s a critical groundwater area, and so we have to preserve it. And as we grow, we need to continue to preserve it, because growth takes more water.”

The commissioners then turned the discussion toward the need for improved mental health facilities.

With the closure of facilities in recent years, the counties have increasingly relied on placing people experiencing crisis in the Umatilla County Jail, county and law enforcement officials have said.

The commissioners discussed the need to build a new facility where they could house people experiencing crisis.

“We’re talking about developing a possible drop-off site for people in crisis,” Murdock said. “That continues to be a problem; when we have people in crisis, we have nowhere to take them.”

Then the boards discussed workforce housing, which Murdock said is in “desperate need” because of skyrocketing housing prices. Murdock said workers in places like the Port of Morrow often come from Umatilla County because of a lack of housing. Creating new housing opportunities would benefit both counties, Murdock said.

“We used to use the term affordable housing,” Murdock said. “But with all the new regulations that have gone in and the cost of building and so forth, I don’t know what you’d call affordable housing, because the value of homes is skyrocketing, plus there are none to be had.”

The commissioners discussed using county funds to front the cost of infrastructure to assist housing developers, Murdock said.

“Perhaps we can find ways ourselves to come up with the funding to help,” he said. “The developer has to put in all that infrastructure up front, but it might be a while before they get the housing development built out. Sometimes that stifles development.”