Boil water advisory issued at Baker County’s Holcomb Park after pump failure

Campers and day users at Holcomb Park were told to boil any water they draw from the park after an aging pump failed and triggered a local advisory. The warning, issued Tuesday, April 28, applied only to Holcomb Park, not to the rest of Baker County or the City of Richland.

That makes the notice more than a campground inconvenience. Holcomb Park sits near Richland on the banks of Brownlee Reservoir and is part of Baker County’s Hewitt and Holcomb campground system, a place used for RV and tent camping, water recreation and other spring trips. Anyone filling a bottle, cooking, brushing teeth or using water from park taps and spigots needs to treat it as unsafe until county officials lift the advisory.

Holcomb Park also carries local history. The site was named for John Noble Holcomb and dedicated on July 4, 1993. More than three decades later, the park is again a reminder that rural recreation depends on infrastructure that is often out of sight until it fails.

County staff said a new pump was already running and water testing was underway. Officials hoped to lift the notice by Monday, May 4, pending a compliance notice. That timeline gives park visitors a rough window, but the advisory will stay in place until testing and approval show the system is back within safe limits.

The state’s drinking-water records underscore why that matters in a small community corridor like this one. Oregon Drinking Water Services tracks advisories statewide, and the City of Richland’s public water system is listed as serving 165 people with 188 connections. Even though the Holcomb Park notice did not affect the city system, a single failure in a rural recreation site can quickly disrupt people who are far from home and relying on park water facilities.

The county has also dealt with other pressures in the same park area. In August 2024, Hewitt Park was closed for construction while Holcomb Park remained open for camping, although its boat ramp was closed because of low water levels. Taken together, those disruptions point to a stretch of parkland where maintenance, water supply and seasonal use all collide.

For Baker County, the issue is not just whether one pump was replaced quickly enough. It is whether aging park infrastructure is being maintained well enough to avoid repeated advisories at a site where visitors expect safe drinking water as spring use ramps up. Until the county says otherwise, Holcomb Park water should be boiled before it is used.