PORTLAND, Ore. (Portland Tribune) — Just over half of Oregonians are confident that they know where their drinking water comes from.
In a survey conducted by the Oregon Values and Beliefs Center, 52% of respondents said they “definitely know” where their drinking water comes from.
Similar to the rest of the state, roughly 75% of Portlanders said they “definitely know” or “could make a good guess” where their drinking water comes from. Of those Portlanders, 65% correctly mentioned the Bull Run Watershed.
The Bull Run Watershed, located 26 miles from Portland in the Mount Hood National Forest, supplies most of Portland’s water supply. The Columbia South Shore Well Field, east of the Portland airport, has 26 wells and is a secondary source for Portland water users.
Rural Oregonians were more likely to say they were confident they knew where their drinking water came from than urban Oregonians.
Older Oregonians were also far more confident than younger Oregonians, with only 31% of 18 to 29-year-olds saying they definitely knew, compared to 80% of Oregonians 75 years and older.
There are more than 3,300 public drinking water systems in Oregon, serving as few as three people or as many as 666,000. Other residents, particularly in rural areas, are on private wells. Many of the public systems pull from the same sources; the Portland Water Bureau supplies Portland consumers, but also sells water to 19 other water providers serving more than 350,000 people.
Salem gets most of its water from the North Santiam River. Washington County gets water from the Clackamas River, which also supplies Clackamas County, and the Tualatin and Trask rivers. Bend gets its water from the Bend Municipal Watershed in the Deschutes National Forest, with backup from the Deschutes Regional Aquifer.
Oregon gets most of its drinking water from surface water, but a portion — particularly in Eastern Oregon — comes from groundwater, meaning water found underground in the spaces between rock and soil particles. Groundwater sources have been threatened by overuse, like in Malheur County, and contamination, like in Morrow and Umatilla counties. Agricultural uses also strain dwindling water supplies.
Asked about where their water comes from, some survey respondents voiced concerns about the future of their water source.
“There are two sources. One is from groundwater which is brought to the surface by a pump. The other is a surface spring,” a rural Yamhill County woman wrote. “Both are resources because we have a protected watershed but with further encroachments by vineyards and other farmers, and by the nearby city which can’t say no to more development, and a state water agency which doesn’t monitor recharge rates, my answer may be very different in 5 years.”
A suburban Lane County woman noted threats to the McKenzie River, which supplies water to much of the county and is the only source for Eugene. The McKenzie River relies on the snowpack in the Cascades, but the peak annual snowpack is dropping.
A Washington County man in the Tualatin Valley Water District questioned the safety of the district’s plan to start pulling water from the Willamette River.
Roughly 72% of the district’s water comes from the Portland Water Bureau, sourced from the Bull Run and Columbia shore wells. The rest comes from the Tualatin River, Barney Reservoir and Hagg Lake.
“TVWD assures me they’ll take steps to be sure Willamette water is safe to drink, and of course I believe them, because when have our governments ever lied to us? Or even been honestly but thoroughly mistaken?” the Washington County man wrote in the survey response.
The survey was conducted online among Oregonians 18 and older from professionally maintained online panels. The polling group said its surveys are within the statistically valid margin of error.
The nonprofit is building a large research panel of Oregonians to ensure that all voices are represented in discussions of public policy in a valid and statistically reliable way.
Selected panelists earn points for their participation, which can be redeemed for cash or donated to a charity. To learn more, visit oregonvbc.org/about-the-panel.