Glug, glug, glug. Good water quality and a sufficient supply are essential to maintaining the health and well being of all.
Water hydrates, cleanses, and provides a home for fish and other species in the food chain. Water is also a magnet for waste and other pollutants that the the City of Salem is constantly trying to control, using anything from filtering systems to wastewater and stormwater management and education.
When pioneers first settled in Salem in the mid 1800s, they drank from a pristine Willamette River, but it soon became polluted and several people fell ill. Salemites switched their drinking water source to the North Santiam river in the 1930s, but the Willamette continues to be the source for other cities such as Corvallis and Wilsonville – thanks to modern filtering technologies. Meanwhile, Salem residents use it for recreational purposes such as swimming, boating, fishing, and to discharge their wastewater.
“We should all be concerned about the health of the Willamette River,” said Travis Williams, director of Willamette Riverkeeper, an organization dedicated to protect and restore the river’s habitats and water quality. “There are emerging toxins and newer chemicals showing up, with the potential to cause real harm.”
Pharmaceuticals are one of those contaminants of emerging concern. According to Dave Leland, manager of the drinking water program for the the state’s public health division, there haven’t been a lot of tests in the Willamette to look for the presence of medications, “but we would guess there are tiny amounts.”
He said that most of the pharmaceuticals in the water come from people taking them and excreting them, but he also warned the public not to flush unused medications and to support drug take-back efforts. He explained that the wastewater treatment process is designed to kill bacteria and take out solids, which is why medications and other substances may not be removed from the Willamette. He also said it is not known whether they’re filtered by the drinking water plant either, but he expects the amount present in the North Santiam would be small, “because the communities around it are small.”
“If you look at rivers that are downstream of municipal water plants you find trace amounts of medications. What we know so far is that they’re removed to varying degrees, but we’re still concerned. Some substances are more removed than others. We don’t have complete knowledge on that,” said Leland, adding that the health risks of those trace amounts of medications are also unknown.
He said the water is regularly tested for 91 federally regulated contaminants, which would be controlled if they exceed the levels that pose a public health risk. However, there could potentially be other chemicals in the water that are not tested for.
The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) takes monthly water samples to check for bacteria.
“Bacteria comes from multiple sources, anything that generates human or animal waste,” said Nancy Gramlich, DEQ’s basin coordinator for the Willamette River. In the wintertime, she said, there is more runoff from the land because of increased precipitation, so most streams are listed for bacteria.
Among other things, the program encourages people to pick up after their pets, checks the quality of septic systems, engages in reforestation efforts to create shade and cooler temperatures for trout and salmon, and tries to slow down stormwater runoff.
In a natural setting, rainwater would be absorbed by the earth and vegetation, but in an urbanized city covered with concrete, the water carries urban pollutants into all waterways and it also creates a risk of flooding.
“We are expecting a severe winter,” said Robert D. Chandler, Ph.D., assistant public works director. The Public Works department has a stormwater management program, which includes street sweeping, building detention basins and educating the public on reducing the use of lawn chemicals.
Stormwater pollutants include soap from car washes, mercury, fertilizers and pesticides.
David Farrer, public heath toxicologist for the office of environmental pubic health, said that mercury, “targets the developing nervous system. Babies would be born apparently normal but as they grow up, it can cause drops in IQ and learning disabilities.” He said that fish with higher mercury levels are those that don’t move around very much, such as bass, but salmon and steelhead are not in one place long enough to absorb the contamination. “It’s important to check the fish advisories from the water body that you’re fishing from, make sure the water doesn’t have a warning for mercury or PCBs [which are very similar to mercury as far as health effects],” he said. Fish advisories can be found at healthoregon.org/fishadv.
“Pesticide in and of itself is classified as a pollutant,” said Benjamin Benninghoff, water quality permit program director at DEQ.
“If fertilizers get in the water, they may become a nutrient source for algae,” he added, explaining that certain types of algae can be toxic to some species. Algae can also clog Salem’s slow sand drinking water filters.
Tim Sherman, treatment plant supervisor, said that the pristine nature of the Santiam River allows the city to use such a simple filtering system, which require no chemicals or electricity to operate.
However, he compared Salem’s source to Portland’s: “Portland does not filter their water at all. They’re not required to. They can prove that there are no outside influences on their source so they have a variance to filtration. Theirs is very much protected, but ours, we have some cities like Mill City and Detroit.” He added that there is some concern over those town’s septic systems leaking into the North Santiam.
“So we are dealing with some issues that Portland is not, mainly wastewater discharges and general pollution [from] mill sites, runoff from the streets, underground storage, gas stations and storage of chemicals.”
Regarding the water supply, Sherman said he has not noticed a trend caused by global warming: “We have drought years and we have wet years. Over time, it seems to be very steady.” He said that the climate situation is being closely monitored, but that Salemites can rest assured that there is enough water to meet demands for the next 50-75 years.
Jeanne Miller, environmental control supervisor for City of Salem, said that aside from Salem’s sewers and drains, some industries are threatening Salem’s waterways: “Solid waste from fruit and vegetable processors become a load for the treatment plant and year-round silicon chip processors are large water users. And the biofuel industry. We don’t want any of their fuels. When product is ‘washed,’ they need to make sure biodiesel doesn’t carry into the wastewater,” she said.
Lead is another problem. Sources include the metal industry and household plumbing systems, especially those built before the mid-1980s, when manufacturers began to reduce the use of lead, said Leland. “But there’s always a little bit of lead in brass,” he said. Soda ash is added to the drinking water to adjust its acidity, making it less corrosive to metal pipes.
Chlorine is also added to the drinking water to kill any remaining bacteria that may have made it through the filtering process, and a residual level is left at all times to prevent new bacteria from entering the supply. The dosage is of one and a half milligrams per liter and the solution is manufactured by the city from salt, water and electricity.
“You have to have it to kill the bugs,” said Leland. He said that there are some health concerns over the byproducts of water chlorination (“chlorinated hydrocarbons”). “The city has to test for them. There are established levels you can’t go over,” he said.
Fluoride is also added. Salem voters decided many years ago to fluoridate because the chemical is said to prevent tooth decay.
“There are risks for everything. We make sure that if people are going to add fluoride, that they do it safely,” said Leland. “The optimal level for dental protection is one part per million. We have a maximum level of four parts per million to prevent skeletal fluorosis [a bone disease caused by excessive fluoride consumption],” he said, adding that if more than that amount of fluoride is present in water sources, it has to be removed.
“There’s a lot of controversy [regarding fluoride]. Just look around on the internet,” he said. “Some people don’t want it in the water. But the benefits are very high for dental health and the risks are low.”
The City buys fluoride from a Florida-based company, LCI Limited, at a cost of $135,000 per year.
Travis Williams of Willamette Riverkeeper said that people in the fluoride and dental industries have actively pushed to add fluoride to the water supply.
“It makes me question: well, why don’t we do a more vigorous effort to teach dental hygiene to children? Many people have aches and pains so why don’t we pump a little Ibuprofen into our water?”
Fluoride is the only medication, available by prescription, that is purposely added to the water supply.
Williams said that after fluoride, a byproduct [of the aluminum and fertilizer industries], is introduced into the drinking water, it is later discharged into the wastewater, entering rivers.
“Fluoride persists in the water systems and studies have suggested that it affects salmon’s ability to navigate,” he said.
Many people who want to avoid chlorine and fluoride choose to drink bottled water, but this option, according to some environmental activists, has some risks.
In Oregon, Nestlé is seeking approval by the state’s water resources department to extract groundwater that is also used by the town of Cascade Locks.
“They don’t know if heavy use during the dry months, taking millions of gallons, would be sustainable overtime,” said Julia DeGraw, Food and Water Watch Northwest organizer. “It is possible that over pumping would cause the Columbia River water to infiltrate the groundwater, contaminating the drinking water supply with surface water from the Columbia river.”
DeGraw said that other companies are bottling Oregon water – such as Coca-Cola, from the Willamette River – but “the difference is that they’re taking an adequate source.”
There will be a panel discussion with DeGraw at the Grand Theater November 11 after the Salem Progressive Film Series’ screening of “Tapped,” a documentary about the bottle water industry.
The film points out that municipal drinking water is much more regulated and therefore potentially purer than bottled water, which may contain benzene, a chemical that may leech from plastic containers, especially if they’re exposed to heat for long periods of time.
“We are blessed with water but we waste a lot of water. If we withdraw less, then more can be used by fish and other wildlife,” said Riverkeeper’s Williams. Riverkeeper is always looking for volunteers.
“If they have half a day they can volunteer and make a difference,” said Williams. He called on the community to reduce pesticide use, support planting efforts around local creeks and choose car washes that recycle water.
