U.S. Water News Online
PORTLAND, Ore. -- For the past century, Portland has
enjoyed a water source of
superior quality in the Bull Run watershed on the slopes of nearby
Mount Hood. In
view of growth projections, however, a Regional Water Supply Plan is
being
developed that involves diverting flows from the Willamette River.
This regionalized
approach to supply planning is all wrong, says a local water
resources expert.
Far from being an objective proposal for the best water supply for
Portland, the regional
water supply plan is a "bureaucratic masterpiece that is trying to
sell the
lowest-quality tap water at the highest price to the most customers,"
said Dan
Aspenwall, who co-hosts a "Water Forum" show on a Portland cable
television
network. Virtually all water systems in northwest Oregon enjoy
high-purity water
from the Bull Run watershed along with the Clackamas and Trask
rivers, Aspenwall
pointed out. "Not regionalizing would provide a powerful incentive to
develop higher
density inside current cities of the region, rather than
incorporating more of the
countryside," he said.
In order to preserve such high-purity watersheds as the Bull Run,
Aspenwall advocates
developing additional supply sources such as the Willamette or
Columbia rivers to
provide water strictly for irrigation and industrial uses. To do this
however, some sort
of dual-delivery system would need to be developed in the Portland
area. Aspenwall
posts additional information about the Portland area water supply
situation on a
World Wide Web page at http://www.teleport.com/dasp.
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