Raise a glass - while it's still full - to Portland's abundant water, law professor says

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on December 03, 2010 at 5:09 PM, updated December 03, 2010 at 5:28 PM

Given western Oregon's infamous rain and big rivers, we may take water for granted.

"We do so at our peril," said Janet Neuman, a Lewis & Clark College law professor and expert on water rights.

Speaking Friday at the Portland City Club's weekly public affairs forum, Neuman said there's much to consider when we absent-mindedly fill the glass, flush the toilet and water the roses.

An increasing population and specialized high-tech industries demand more water, with silicone wafer plants needing 2 million to 4 million gallons a day -- the equivalent demand of a city of 40,000 to 50,000 people, she said.

Climate change will affect supply and demand as rainfall replaces snowpack and ironically results in both more floods and more droughts. Cities, water districts, irrigators, hydroelectric operators and fish managers jostle in line to control the tap. Meanwhile, the water supply system is controlled by gerrymandered service boundaries.

"This isn't the way we would design the system if we could start over," Neuman said.

Which we can't, so other fixes are in order. We've only scratched the surface of conservation and controlling demand, she said, and water is "incredibly cheap." She acknowledged it's "very controversial," but increasing the price of a commodity motivates people to use less of it -- gasoline being the prime example.

About 80 percent of the water used in Oregon goes to irrigate crops, and many of the systems are inefficient. Water savings are available there, Neuman said. Meanwhile, the state is belatedly drafting its first water conservation and management plan -- a crucial step in a time of "intensifying competition for a more uncertain supply," she said.

Overall, however, the state hasn't made the connection between land use and water use, she said. While much of the growth debate centers on the amount of developable land available, water isn't given the same consideration.

"Water is just as important a raw material," Neuman said. "It is just as big an economic driver."

Oregon's water situation is complicated by the water rights system that dates to pioneer days. Essentially, it's a "first in time, first in right" system -- meaning whoever first filed for a water right and put it to productive use has a superior legal position. That right prevails in times of water shortages, which in some eastern Oregon counties has resulted in wells ordered shut down as aquifers declined.

Neuman gave her audience a primer on Portland's water, which primarily comes from the Bull Run reservoir system on the flanks of Mount Hood. The gravity-fed system, filtered by an intact, protected watershed, produces "phenomenally clean" water despite Portland's ongoing dispute with the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which wants the city to add additional treatment.

On another topic, Neuman said a Umatilla basin plan to recharge aquifers with excess winter flows from the Columbia River is a "great idea." Farmers in the region face water shortages because wells drilled to irrigate crops have drastically drawn down the amount of groundwater available.

The project would refill the aquifers during the winter and represents a "storage option of the future," she said.

--Eric Mortenson