For more than twenty years, the Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB) – which provides water for more than 60,000 customers in Oregon’s second largest city – has utilized technicians and independent laboratories to collect and test more than 85,000 samples from the McKenzie River every year.
In its most recent 2022 Consumer Confidence Report that published results of EWEB’s water quality monitoring program in 2022, the report concluded Eugene’s water “meets and exceeds all state and federal drinking water health standards, and EWEB has once again been listed as an “Outstanding Performer” by the Oregon Health Authority (OHA).”
EWEB’s water has never violated a maximum contaminant level or any other water quality standard established by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The McKenzie River originates from Clear Lake, a spring-fed lake in the Cascade Mountains and flows 85 miles to the Hayden Bridge Water Filtration Plant in Springfield, where EWEB draws water from the river where it then filters and treats water to be supplied to citizens for drinking water.
Private industrial forestland accounts for the greatest single land use in the 8-hour time of travel area (most immediately adjacent to surface water intakes) in the McKenzie watershed with approximately 37 percent of land ownership managed for timber production. Despite extensive testing for hundreds of potential contaminants, EWEB found no evidence of contamination from forestry.
Between 2002 and 2010 EWEB conducted a pesticide monitoring program on the McKenzie River in collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey. The study collected samples from various sites representing different land uses in the lower McKenzie River basin, detecting 43 compounds, mostly at low concentrations. The report concluded “forestry pesticide use is not considered a likely threat to drinking water quality,” urban stormwater drains showed the highest pesticide concentrations, with minimal threat to human health at the drinking-water intake, and further investigation is needed to understand agricultural chemical runoff in the McKenzie River basin.