Dear Readers of The Dirt!

[Editor's Note: Last week's introduction on the topic of water obviously sparked some thought! And really, that speaks of a dream coming true - where The Dirt! serves as an active forum for participation, thought, input, discussion, and consciousness-raising. Thanks go out to Tricia Knoll, longtime reader of The Dirt!, Public Relations for the Portland Water Bureau, and Yone Akagi, Regulatory Compliance Manager of the Portland Water Bureau, for their thoughtful response that helped to deepen the discussion from our intro last week. LBN]

Cheyenne writes:

Let's continue with last week's topic of drinking water.

Most of us (most of the time) do not take the time to consider the source of our water. Especially when we live in a city where the water is so satisfactory, even delicious on a good day. But water is the centerpiece of a healthy society. The destruction of water ecology is swiftly and silently becoming the flashpoint of global environmental and cultural devastation. The story of water is always changing.

From building the first little cabin on the banks of the Willamette, in the spot that would one day become Portland, it took European settlers about sixteen years to foul the ground water. After the wells were abandoned, early Portlanders drank water from Caruthers Creek (now OHSU), Balch Creek (which still runs above ground through Forest Park), and of course the Willamette. But as the city developed, and the surrounding hillsides were deforested, our watersheds degraded. As Portland grew (and it grew quickly) the local water became foul and dangerous to drink (imagine taking a drink out of your local watershed today). It was clear that if Portland was going to have a drinkable water supply, it would have to come from some place away from the realm of human settlement. The forest would have to remain intact; the livestock would have to be kept out.

Bull Run is forty miles away from Portland as the crow flies. We city dwellers, who are so blessed to drink Bull Run water, do not live in the Bull Run Watershed. In fact few of us ever even get to see it. Thanks to early Portland visionaries, the land that drains in to Bull Run is, for the most part, entirely protected from human entry.

I highly recommend taking a water bureau tour of the Bull Run. To find out how, visit the Portland Water Bureau's web site.

Get to know the water. We cannot be human with out water. Enjoy the rain, and this week's edition of The Dirt!

Cheyenne
Spreading Roots, Spring Forth

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