The Portland Water Bureau is the municipal water department for the city of Portland in the U.S. state of Oregon. The bureau manages a water supply that comes mainly from the Bull Run River in the foothills of the Cascade Range east of the city and secondarily from the Columbia South Shore Well Field near the Columbia River. As of 2023, Mingus Mapps was the city commissioner in charge of the bureau,[1] and the chief administrator is Michael Stuhr.[2] Budgeted departmental revenues for fiscal year 2015–16 included about $157million for charges for services.[3]
In 1843 or 1844, William Overton and Asa Lovejoy, while traveling by canoe from Fort Vancouver to Oregon City, stopped to rest on the west bank of the Willamette River and agreed it would be a good place for a town. Laying claim to 640 acres (260ha) of riverfront land, they founded what in 1851 became the incorporated city of Portland.[4] Relying entirely on water from wells until the mid-1850s, Portland residents became concerned when polluted drainage from the city's growing number of houses began to contaminate the wells. In 1856, Pioneer Water Works, a private company, got permission from Portland's government to pipe water from Caruthers Creek to some of these homes.[n 1] Twice changing hands and becoming the Portland Water Company, the business added new pipes and pumps to obtain water from Balch Creek and the Willamette River, but failed to meet ever-increasing demand for clean water. Based on water-quality surveys and engineering studies, the Portland Fire and Water Committee recommended in 1872 that the City build its own water system. To issue bonds to finance the project, it needed state approval.
The Oregon Legislature denied approval until 1884–85, when waste from upstream factories and towns—as well as Portland's own waste, returned to Portland by tidal fluctuations on the Willamette—caused another pollution crisis. In the face of public protests about dirty water, the legislature relented, and the Portland Water Committee began work on a municipal system in 1885.[6] The Water Committee was also created because of the political rivalry between Joseph Simon and John H. Mitchell.[7] Simon was attempting to isolate the power of the Mitchell faction.[7]
The 15-member committee was made up of the most prominent businessmen in Portland,[n 2] and was led by Henry Failing.[9] It was derisively named the "Oligarchy of 15" by a 6-1 vote of the Portland City Council.[7] While Failing was the official leader through 1897, "William S. Ladd was the dominant spirit", and meetings were always held at his Ladd & Tilton Bank.[7] Ladd also supplied an initial $20,000 needed for the system.[7]
The committee bought the infrastructure of the Portland Water Company in 1886 and began a search for a superior water source, which led them to the Bull Run Watershed in 1887.[7][9] A committee meeting in early 1887 selected Bull Run with only Simeon Reed opposing the development, who favored continuing to use the Willamette.[7]
Isaac W. Smith an engineer and surveyor, was commissioned to inspect any viable water supply in the region. After considering options including Oswego Lake and the Clackamas River, Smith settled on the Bull Run River as the most likely prospect. A five-month survey trip led Smith to conclude that a gravity-flow system could deliver clean water from the river to Portland.[9] The committee and Judge Matthew Deady drafted a bill to finance the $500,000 cost.[7] It was vetoed by Governor Sylvester Pennoyer in early 1889, which led Deady to state "in view of his impracticable, cranky nature and conduct he ought to be called Sylpester Annoyer."[7]
Most landowners along the Bull Run stream agreed to sell their rights for nominal fees. One exception was a civil engineer who, based on his own investigations, had bought land and water rights along the river in hopes of re-selling them to the city. After much negotiating, he relinquished his rights in 1888. In 1891, the Oregon Legislature authorized the city to sell bonds to pay for the Bull Run project, which began delivering water to Portland in 1895.[9]
When the Bull Run water first arrived in Portland in January 1895, Pennoyer was asked to give a toast.[7] "After tasting his glass of Bull Run water he commented that it had neither body nor flavor; he much preferred the old Willamette".[7]
Protecting the supply
A locked gate and fence on Southeast Waterworks Road (National Forest Development Road 10) restrict entry to the western end of the Bull Run Management Unit.
To protect the water supply from contamination, the committee sought federal help in reducing logging and tree-clearing in the watershed. In 1892, President Benjamin Harrison, using powers granted to him by the Forest Reserve Act of 1891, established the Bull Run Forest Reserve, later included in the Bull Run National Forest. This law prohibited settlement in the 142,000-acre (570km2) reserve and made it easier for the committee to acquire private land and water rights in the basin.[10]
Despite the new restrictions, fishing, hunting, camping, and cattle and sheep grazing were still allowed. The committee sought further restrictions, and in 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt signed into law the Bull Run Trespass Act to further protect the reserve and the water. Over the next half-century, the Portland Water Board, the committee's successor, added diversion structures, storage reservoirs, treatment equipment, and water conduits to the original system. However, by the mid-1950s, the City of Portland and the United States Forest Service began to strongly disagree about logging in and public access to the watershed. In 1959, the Forest Service opened 42,500 acres (172km2) to recreation,[10] and in 1960 Congress passed the Multiple-Use – Sustained Yield Act that, among other things, stressed timber production in the national forests.[11] Between the late 1950s and 1976, the Forest Service allowed about 8,700 acres (35km2) to be logged in the reserve.[10]
Ruling on a citizen lawsuit, Miller v. Mallery, Judge James M. Burns agreed in 1976 that logging in the reserve violated the Trespass Act of 1904. He ordered that further recreation, logging, and hydropower development cease in the reserve.[10] Because it wanted to develop hydropower along the Bull Run River, the City of Portland sought revised legislation. U.S. Representative Robert B. Duncan and U.S. Senator Mark Hatfield introduced such legislation, which led in 1977 to passage of the Bull Run Watershed Management Act.[11] It established the Bull Run Watershed Management Unit (BRWMU) and removed Portland's control over the fraction of the reserve that had been opened to recreation in 1959. Although the new law allowed hydropower production within the BRWMU, the unit's main purpose was to produce pure drinking water for the City of Portland and other entities in the Portland metropolitan area. Shortly thereafter, the City built the Portland Hydroelectric Project, which included two powerhouses and a transmission line. Logging did not immediately cease in the unit because the new law allowed activities unless they could be shown to reduce water quality. While the City and the Forest Service worked on water-quality standards, logging continued on a smaller scale, including a 1983 operation to salvage about 1,700 acres (6.9km2) of trees downed by a windstorm. Between 1958 and 1993, when all timber-cutting operations ceased in the BRWMU, about 14,500 acres (59km2), roughly 22percent of the water-supply drainage, had been logged.[10]
Subsequent legislation affecting the watershed included federal designation in 1994 of about 75percent of the BRWMU as a reserve for protecting the Northern Spotted Owl and other species dependent on old-growth forests. This designation further restricted logging. In 1996, the Oregon Resources Conservation Act generally prohibited logging on all Forest Service lands within the Bull Run water-supply drainage and another 3,500 acres (14km2) of land that drained to the lower Bull Run River.[10] In 2001, President George W. Bush signed the Little Sandy Act, which extended the prohibitions to the entire BRWMU and expanded it to include public lands along the Little Sandy River, a tributary of the Bull Run River. In addition, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act, the Northwest Forest Plan, and the Endangered Species Act all regulate the unit.[11]
Although the BRWMU is generally closed to the public, the Portland Water Bureau offers tours of the watershed, usually in the summer or fall.[12] In addition, the Pacific Crest Trail, heavily used for hiking, crosses the watershed along the eastern boundary of the management unit.[13]
Corruption and graft
The Portland Water Bureau was always rumored to be managed by corrupt city commissioners. By 1913 it had what E. Kimbark MacColl referred to, tongue in cheek, as a "giant leak". The bureau sold its water unmetered and gave much away, such as to Henry Pittock, who not only received free water but also a pipe to his hillside Pittock Mansion.[14]:132
Portland City Council commissioner Will Daly instituted much reform from 1911 to 1917, including the unmetered water and free supply.[14]:132 However, as Mayor Baker reigned (1917-1933), Commissioner John Mann returned to the previously corrupt practices. One clerk stole an estimated $20,000 during the 1920s.[14]:132,133 Mann and Baker's mortgages were paid off by unnamed benefactors; Mann drove a luxury car paid for by the Water Bureau, and had a private resort in the Bull Run watershed, built by bureau employees. Mann "ran the bureau like a dictator". Henry Gross and a local Reverend Johannsen began the effort to recall Mann and Baker, primarily over the highly indebted Water Bureau. A grand jury indicted Mann, though charges were dropped in 1931 by a new district attorney, Lotus Langley. By then, Mann, Mayor Baker, and Earl Riley were embroiled in accepting bribes for locating the Portland Public Market. Johannsen and Gross began a recall effort against Mann, Baker, Riley, and Langley.[14]
After Governor Julius Meier sent forensic accountantFrank Akin to find corruption at the Port of Portland, Akin turned to the Water Bureau. Akin was murdered the day before he was slated to present Port evidence to the Oregon state legislature, when he was only a month into his Water Bureau investigation. Many rumors swirled around Akin's death, and his report on the water bureau disappeared. Commissioner Jake Bennett was documented to have the only other copy of it; a year later, he claimed to have returned it to the auditor's office, which The Oregonian dutifully reported.[14]:130,133
Infrastructure
Bull Run Lake to headworks
One large natural lake, two artificial reservoirs, and the Bull Run River and its tributaries lie within the watershed. Seasonal precipitation produces streamflows that vary from up to 13 billion gallons (49,000,000m3) per day to as low as 30 million gallons (110,000m3) per day.[15]
Bull Run Lake, the highest lake in the watershed, is natural. When it is full, its surface is at 3,174 to 3,178 feet (967.4 to 968.7m) above sea level.[16] Water from the lake seeps through the ground into the river at a rate of 20 to 25 million gallons(76,000 to 95,000 m3) a day and flows into artificial reservoirs at two points further downstream.[16] The Portland Water Bureau built Dam1, a concrete arch-gravity dam, in 1929 to create Reservoir1, also known as Ben Morrow Lake. The larger of the two reservoirs, it holds a maximum of 9.9 billion gallons(37 million m3).[17] In 1962, the bureau finished Dam2, an earthfill dam with a maximum storage capacity of 6.8 billion gallons(26 million m3).[17] Although the two reservoirs combined can hold up to about 17 billion gallons(64 million m3), the total usable storage is about 10 billion gallons(38 million m3).[17]
The raw water intake (headworks) at Bull Run is located just below Dam 2, at river mile (RM) 6.2 or river kilometer (RK) 10.0.[18] This is where water is diverted from the river for chlorination and then routed into distribution conduits for delivery to Portland. The average rate of the water flow at the headworks is about 773 cubic feet per second (21.9m3/s).[16] About 23percent of the watershed's annual runoff is diverted to the city's water supply.[15]
Headworks to water taps
Starting at an elevation of about 860 feet (260m) above sea level,[19] Bull Run water flows by gravity from the headworks through three large pipes to an underground reservoir at Powell Butte Nature Park in east Portland.[17] The pipes, above ground in places, are vulnerable to landslides, falling trees, earthquakes, and other hazards. In 2006, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) granted $3million to the city for seismic upgrades to pipes where they cross trestles above streams.[20]
The Powell Butte underground reservoir, first used in 1981, is near the intersection of Southeast 158th Avenue and Southeast Powell Boulevard in southeast Portland. The reservoir, with a capacity of 50 million gallons(190,000 m3), has an overflow elevation of about 530 feet (160m) above sea level.[21] During droughts or emergencies, water can be pumped about 4.5 miles (7.2km) from city-owned wells near the Columbia River to Powell Butte, where it mixes with Bull Run water. From Powell Butte, water can flow by gravity to places as far away as parts of Washington County, west of Portland. The Washington County Supply Line, 14 miles (23km) long, can deliver up to 60 million gallons(230,000 m3) a day to customers in Tualatin, the Tualatin Valley and Raleigh Hills.[21] Overall, the City of Portland provides water to residents of Portland and 19 suburban cities and water districts comprising nearly 25percent of the Oregon population.[22]
In addition to the reservoir at Powell Butte, as of 2009 the city of Portland has five large open drinking water reservoirs and an underground reservoir in two city parks at lower elevations, and is working on a second reservoir at Powell Butte. Reservoirs 1, 5, and 6, which are open, and Reservoir 7, which is underground, are in Mount Tabor Park in southeast Portland, and Reservoirs 3 and 4 are in Washington Park in southwest Portland.[23] Reservoir 2 at Mount Tabor was abandoned in 1976.[24] Work began in September 2009 on a second 50 million-gallon(190,000 m3) underground reservoir to be completed by 2013 at Powell Butte.[25] Its storage capacity is meant to offset the loss of the five open reservoirs at Mount Tabor and Washington parks, which will be disconnected from the water system by 2015.[25] The three functioning Mount Tabor reservoirs, including gatehouses, wrought-iron fences, and ornate lampposts, in Mount Tabor Park, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[23] The Washington Park reservoirs and their gatehouses and fences are also listed on the National Register.[26]
Storage reservoirs in the city
Number
Location (park)
Date built
Capacity
Maximum depth
Walking circumference
Remarks
Note
1
Mount Tabor (upper southern flank)
1894
12 million US gallons (45,000 m3)
32 feet (9.8m)
0.2 miles (0.32km)
Supplies water to distribution system and Portland's west side.
Feeds Reservoir 6 further downhill as well as Reservoir 3 in Washington Park. Its outflow generates electricity to power lights and equipment in Mount Tabor Park.
Rectangular, divided by a wall into two equal basins (active and empty) alternated every six months after reservoir cleaning. Supplies lower-elevation neighborhoods on Portland's east side.
From the storage reservoirs, much of the water flows or is pumped into 64 water-storage tanks distributed around the city to provide each neighborhood with enough water pressure for regular use and for firefighting.[27] Tanks of concrete or steel are either buried, partly buried, at ground-level, elevated, or set up as cylindrical standpipes. Concrete tanks hold between 60,000 US gallons (230m3) and 4 million gallons(15,000 m3), and steel tanks hold from 30,000 US gallons (110m3) to more than 5 million gallons(19,000 m3).[27] The oldest tanks in the system date to 1907 and 1909, while the newest tank was built in 2001.[27] Water flows through the tanks continuously to ensure that the water reaching customers is fresh. From the tanks, water flows through underground pipes called "water mains" from which small branch pipes lead to individual water meters and then the private water pipes of individual homes and businesses.[22]
Water quality
Treatment
Portland's raw water from Bull Run is of such high quality, among the best in the U.S., that it does not need to be filtered.[28] The bureau monitors water quality at Bull Run Lake, the two reservoirs, the mouths of the four major tributaries that enter the reservoirs, and at the raw-water intake at the headworks. The supply complies with all state and federal regulations under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA).[28]
To treat the raw water, the bureau uses a process called chloramination, which disinfects the water with chlorine then adds ammonia to prolong the chlorine's effectiveness.[29] Although these additives kill microorganisms such as coloform bacteria and giardia that can cause disease in humans, they can react with naturally occurring compounds in water to form other compounds such as trihalomethanes. Under provisions of the SDWA, the bureau monitors the levels of disinfectant byproducts to ensure that they remain under the maximum limits set by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and enforced by the Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS).[30]
Since 1997, in response to targets set by the ODHS, the bureau has been adding sodium hydroxide to the water to reduce its potential for corroding lead and copper in home plumbing. The treatment, which makes the water less acidic, has resulted in “at least a 50percent reduction in lead at the tap... ”. The target pH range is 7.8 to 8.0.[29]
Limiting contamination
Long protected by land-use controls, the watershed is free of contaminants of concern except for naturally occurring microbes such as Giardia lamblia, Cryptosporidium, fecal coliform bacteria and total coliform bacteria, which are found in virtually all freshwater ecosystems. In the Bull Run watershed, sources of giardia and fecal coliform bacteria are limited to wildlife such as deer, elk, cougar, and North American beaver. Sources of Cryptosporidium include most species of wild mammals and several bird species. A fence around the diversion pool at the headworks prevents direct animal contact with water near the system intake.[18]
All water supplied by Portland's public water system meets or surpasses federal and state drinking water standards. Each year, the water bureau analyzes more than 10,000 water samples from reservoirs in the watershed and in the city, from groundwater, and from the distribution system and consumers' taps. The monitoring schedules comply with federal and state regulations, and records of the analyses are available to the public.[30]
To comply with the EPA's Total Coliform Rule of 1990, the water bureau must collect and analyze at least 210 water samples each month from its distribution system. The rule requires that total coliform bacteria be absent in 95percent of the samples; if a positive sample is found, three more samples must be collected and analyzed within 24hours. Any positive Escherichia coli (E. coli) sample followed by a positive total coliform sample, or a positive total coliform sample followed by a positive E. coli sample is a violation of the Total Coliform Rule. In practice, following guidelines approved by the State of Oregon in 2005, the water bureau analyzes between 250 and 350samples each month.[31] Between 1990 and late November 2009, a total of 14 water samples tested positive for E. coli but all follow-up samples tested negative.[32]
However, routine water samples collected beginning November 25, 2009, from Reservoir 3 in Washington Park indicated the presence of E. coli in the follow-up test as well as the first test. The water bureau issued a boil-water advisory to its customers west of the Willamette River on November 28, 2009, as well as customers of the Valley View, Burlington and Palatine Hill water districts. The advisory was lifted on November 29, 2009.[33]
Another EPA rule, the Long Term 2 Surface Water Treatment Rule (LT2) of 2000, has been the subject of controversy between the EPA and the City of Portland. This supplement to the Clean Water Act of 1996 was designed to reduce illness linked to Cryptosporidium and other microbes in drinking-water systems. The rule, which applies to any drinking-water system in the U.S. that uses surface water or groundwater, is relevant to about 14,000systems. The City of Portland has argued that the Cryptosporidium threat to the city's water is so low that the EPA rule should not apply to Portland, but its efforts to seek legal or legislative relief have been unsuccessful. A legal challenge was denied in 2007, and Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley informed the water bureau in June 2009 that a legislative approach had little chance of success. Meanwhile, the bureau is pursuing "multiple and simultaneous paths to comply with LT2".[34] On January 13, 2010, the EPA rejected the city's request for a variance from LT2 that would have allowed it to continue to use open reservoirs.[35] The city is building new underground reservoirs to replace the open reservoirs, and it plans to treat the source water with ultraviolet UV light unless the EPA grants a variance or an acceptable alternative can be found.[34] The EPA deadline for compliance is April 2014.[34]
PPCPs
Although the EPA does not require testing for pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCP)s in drinking water, the Portland Water Bureau monitors the Bull Run and groundwater supplies for their presence. PPCPs include prescription and non-prescription drugs for humans, veterinary drugs, vitamins, cosmetics, diagnostic agents, and other personal-care or pharmaceutical chemicals.[36] When the Bull Run water was first tested for PPCPs in August 2006, the water bureau found an extremely low level, 9.2 parts per trillion of caffeine.[37] Regulated contaminants are generally measured in parts per billion, which is a thousand times larger than parts per trillion.[36] Tests of the groundwater in October 2007 found extremely low levels (25 parts per trillion or less) of acetaminophen, caffeine, ibuprofen, and sulfamethoxazole. Testing in April and May 2008 found no PPCPs in the Bull Run supply and trace amounts (18 parts per trillion or less) of estradiol and ethinylestradiol in the groundwater supply. In August and November 2008, tests found no PPCPs in the groundwater supply.[37]
Notes and references
Notes
↑ Caruthers Creek flowed east into the Willamette River down a ravine known as Marquam Gulch, near the modern site of Oregon Health Sciences University in southwest Portland. By the mid-1880s, the company, re-named the Portland Water Company, abandoned the creek, which city growth had overrun and polluted.[5]
↑ The 15 members of the Portland Water Committee were John Gates, F.C. Smith, C.H. Lewis, Henry Failing, William S. Ladd, Frank Dekum, L. Fleishner, Henry W. Corbett, W.L.K. Smith, J. Loewenburg, Simeon Gannett Reed, R.B. Knapp, L. Therkelson, Thomas M. Richardson, and A.H. Johnson[8]
1 2 3 4 5 Chandler, J. D. (2016). Murder & scandal in prohibition Portland: sex, vice & misdeeds in Mayor Baker's reign. Charleston, SC: The History Press. p.99,103. ISBN978-1-4671-1953-5. OCLC928581539.
MacColl, E. Kimbark (November 1976). The Shaping of a City: Business and Politics in Portland, Oregon 1885 to 1915. Portland, Oregon: The Georgian Press Company. pp.62–68. OCLC2645815.
The Willamette River is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is 187 miles (301 km) long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States. Flowing northward between the Oregon Coast Range and the Cascade Range, the river and its tributaries form the Willamette Valley, a basin that contains two-thirds of Oregon's population, including the state capital, Salem, and the state's largest city, Portland, which surrounds the Willamette's mouth at the Columbia.
The Molalla River is a 51-mile (82 km) tributary of the Willamette River in the northwestern part of Oregon in the United States. Flowing northwest from the Cascade Range through Table Rock Wilderness, it passes the city of Molalla before entering the larger river near Canby. The Molalla is the largest Willamette tributary unblocked by a dam.
The Clackamas River is an approximately 83-mile (134 km) tributary of the Willamette River in northwestern Oregon, in the United States. Draining an area of about 940 square miles (2,435 km2), the Clackamas flows through mostly forested and rugged mountainous terrain in its upper reaches, and passes agricultural and urban areas in its lower third. The river rises in eastern Marion County, about 55 miles (89 km) east-southeast of Salem. The headwaters are on the slopes of Olallie Butte in the Mount Hood National Forest, about 10 miles (16 km) north of Mount Jefferson, at an elevation of 4,909 feet (1,496 m) in the Cascade Range. The Clackamas flows briefly north and then flows northwest through the mountains, passing through North Fork Reservoir and Estacada. It then emerges from the mountains southeast of Portland. It joins the Willamette near Oregon City and forms the boundary between Oregon City and Gladstone.
Mount Tabor is a neighborhood in Southeast Portland that takes its name from the volcanic cinder cone and city park on the volcano that it surrounds, in the U.S. state of Oregon. The name refers to Mount Tabor, Israel. It was named by Plympton Kelly, son of Oregon City pioneer resident Clinton Kelly.
The Bull Run River is a 21.9-mile (35.2 km) tributary of the Sandy River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Beginning at the lower end of Bull Run Lake in the Cascade Range, it flows generally west through the Bull Run Watershed Management Unit (BRWMU), a restricted area meant to protect the river and its tributaries from contamination. The river, impounded by two artificial storage reservoirs as well as the lake, is the primary source of drinking water for the city of Portland, Oregon.
A combination of aqueducts, reservoirs, and tunnels supplies fresh water to New York City. With three major water systems stretching up to 125 miles (201 km) away from the city, its water supply system is one of the most extensive municipal water systems in the world.
Powell Butte is an extinct cinder cone butte in Portland, Oregon, United States. It is part of the Boring Lava Field, which includes more than 80 small volcanic edifices and lava flows in the Portland–Vancouver metropolitan area. The region around Powell Butte has a cool climate, and the butte and its surroundings feature meadows, rivers, and mixed forests. Powell Butte hosts the Powell Butte Nature Park, which includes about 612 acres (2.48 km2) of trails for biking, hiking, and horseback riding.
Mount Tabor is an extinct volcanic vent with a city park on the volcano, located in Portland, Oregon's neighborhood of the same name. The name refers to Mount Tabor, Israel. It was named by Plympton Kelly, son of Oregon City pioneer resident Clinton Kelly.
Johnson Creek is a 25-mile (40 km) tributary of the Willamette River in the Portland metropolitan area of the U.S. state of Oregon. Part of the drainage basin of the Columbia River, its catchment consists of 54 square miles (140 km2) of mostly urban land occupied by about 180,000 people as of 2012. Passing through the cities of Gresham, Portland, and Milwaukie, the creek flows generally west from the foothills of the Cascade Range through sediments deposited by glacial floods on a substrate of basalt. Though polluted, it is free-flowing along its main stem and provides habitat for salmon and other migrating fish.
Tryon Creek is a 4.85-mile (7.81 km) tributary of the Willamette River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Part of the drainage basin of the Columbia River, its watershed covers about 6.5 square miles (16.8 km2) in Multnomah and Clackamas counties. The stream flows southeast from the Tualatin Mountains through the Multnomah Village neighborhood of Portland and the Tryon Creek State Natural Area to the Willamette in the city of Lake Oswego. Parks and open spaces cover about 21 percent of the watershed, while single-family homes dominate most of the remainder. The largest of the parks is the state natural area, which straddles the border between the two cities and counties.
Fanno Creek is a 15-mile (24 km) tributary of the Tualatin River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Part of the drainage basin of the Columbia River, its watershed covers about 32 square miles (83 km2) in Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas counties, including about 7 square miles (18 km2) within the Portland city limits.
Balch Creek is a 3.5-mile (5.6 km) tributary of the Willamette River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Beginning at the crest of the Tualatin Mountains, the creek flows generally east down a canyon along Northwest Cornell Road in unincorporated Multnomah County and through the Macleay Park section of Forest Park, a large municipal park in Portland. At the lower end of the park, the stream enters a pipe and remains underground until reaching the river. Danford Balch, after whom the creek is named, settled a land claim along the creek in the mid-19th century. After murdering his son-in-law, he became the first person legally hanged in Oregon.
The Columbia Slough is a narrow waterway, about 19 miles (31 km) long, in the floodplain of the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Oregon. From its source in the Portland suburb of Fairview, the Columbia Slough meanders west through Gresham and Portland to the Willamette River, about 1 mile (1.6 km) from the Willamette's confluence with the Columbia. It is a remnant of the historic wetlands between the mouths of the Sandy River to the east and the Willamette River to the west. Levees surround much of the main slough as well as many side sloughs, detached sloughs, and nearby lakes. Drainage district employees control water flows with pumps and floodgates. Tidal fluctuations cause reverse flow on the lower slough.
The Little Sandy River is a tributary, roughly 15 miles (24 km) long, of the Bull Run River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Forming west of Mount Hood in the Mount Hood National Forest, it flows generally west, roughly parallel to the Sandy River to the south. Its entire course lies in Clackamas County, and most of its main stem and tributaries are within the Bull Run Watershed Management Unit (BRWMU), a restricted zone that protects Portland's main water supply.
The South Fork Bull Run River is a tributary, about 6 miles (9.7 km) long, of the Bull Run River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Part of the system that provides drinking water to the city of Portland, it flows generally west through a protected part of the Mount Hood National Forest in Clackamas County. It joins the Bull Run River at Bull Run Reservoir 2, about 8 miles (13 km) from the larger stream's confluence with the Sandy River.
The North Fork Bull Run River is a tributary, about 6 miles (10 km) long, of the Bull Run River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Part of the system that provides drinking water to the city of Portland, it flows generally south through a protected part of the Mount Hood National Forest in Multnomah County. It joins the Bull Run River at Bull Run Reservoir 1.
Big Butte Creek is a 12-mile-long (19 km) tributary of the Rogue River in the U.S. state of Oregon. It drains approximately 245 square miles (635 km2) of Jackson County. Its two forks, the North Fork and the South Fork, both begin high in the Cascade Range near Mount McLoughlin. Flowing predominantly west, they meet near the city of Butte Falls. The main stem flows generally northwest until it empties into the Rogue Falls was incorporated in 1911, and remains the only incorporated town within the watershed's boundaries.
Blazed Alder Creek is a tributary, about 4 miles (6 km) long, of the Bull Run River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Part of the system that provides drinking water to the city of Portland, it flows generally north through a protected part of the Mount Hood National Forest in Clackamas and Multnomah counties. The creek is named after a 24-inch (61 cm) blazed (marked) alder tree that was used as a benchmark during early watershed surveys.
Fir Creek is a tributary, about 5 miles (8 km) long, of the Bull Run River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Part of the system that provides drinking water to the city of Portland, it flows generally northwest through a protected part of the Mount Hood National Forest in Clackamas and Multnomah counties. It joins the Bull Run River at the upper end of Bull Run Reservoir 1, about 14 miles (23 km) from the larger stream's confluence with the Sandy River.
The Mark O. Hatfield Memorial Trail is a proposed long-distance trail through the Columbia River Gorge in Multnomah County and Hood River County, Oregon. The trail will be approximately 60 miles, although the trail is still unofficial and its exact course is yet to be determined. The trail was first proposed by Tom Kloster on June 20, 2010, and suggests the Mark O. Hatfield Memorial Trail use existing trails from Multnomah Falls to Starvation Creek. Prior to this suggestion, the Talapus Trail, connecting the Pacific Crest Trail and Larch Mountain was slated for construction in 1974. Hikers openly used trails in the Bull Run Watershed into the 1980s, including the Talapus Trail.
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