Gov. Kate Brown today added eight counties to the growing list that are under a drought emergency declaration, including the first locations west of the Cascades.
The additional eight—Deschutes, Grant, Jackson, Josephine, Lane, Morrow, Umatilla, and Wasco—join Baker Crook, Harney, Klamath, Lake, Malheur, and Wheeler counties, which Brown put on the list before April.
By comparison, in 2014 a total of nine counties reached drought emergency status, according to the news release. Here’s how the whole state looks (spoiler: there’s an awful lot of red on the map).
“The majority of our state is parched due to the warm winter and lack of snow,” Brown says in the news release. “As we move into summer, many areas of the state are going to dry out very quickly, likely leading to a difficult fire season as well as water shortages. We need our state, local and federal partners to be prepared as our communities grapple with hot and dry conditions.”
The news release continues to say that though water recreation spots around the state will be open for Memorial Day weekend, “long-term forecasts continue to call for temperatures well above normal.”
Just yesterday, the Oregonian reported that a large salmon kill is likely this summer in the Klamath River, as water stored in Klamath Basin reservoirs is already committed to endangered sucker and threatened coho salmon.
Water rights in Oregon have been in the news lately as opponents of a proposed deal between Cascade Locks and notoriously bad water steward Nestlé fight efforts to allow the multinational company to siphon off water from Oxbow Springs to bottle and ship to people who haven’t figured out that tap water is just as good.
Brown included this handy PSA in her news release:
Nestle is a red herring; the amount of water they will be extracting is the proverbial “drop in the bucket” and will not make or break a drought in any state. For example, Nestle in California uses less that 0.01% of that state’s water; the majority of water use – 70%+ – is for agriculture, and the biggest residential use is for outdoor landscaping.
That said, bottled water is certainly a financial racket – compare the cost of a liter of bottled water to municipal tap water – in Portland you get 748 gallons of safe, treated tap water for around $3.00 these days. And most bottled water is just repackaged tap water anyway.