i tell you about portland which we are a drinking water only utility and 80 miles away from the pacific ocean that there are lessons that can be useful to you but our issues pale in comparison to the issues your dealing with here. first a quick description of our system. its the largest one in oregon serving about 8 hundred thousand people. 25 percent of the state and average a hundred million gallons of water a day. our primary source is the bowling river in the cascade mountains east of the city and two reservoirs and ten million gallons of usable storage. we have a secondary ground storing source on the south side of the colombia river and we have capacity to serve our base needs just by ground water some you can count portland among those that believe climate change is real and have been following it for over two decades. the ctional is a national leader. i know i need to tread carefully in san francisco talking about treading in this area but most of you are probably fam
here on behalf of our water bureau who sends his regrets. i m very glad to be here today before i start on the story of portland i want to say the morning session has painteded a picture for me of the scale of issues you face here in california and i hope the story i tell you about portland which we are a drinking water only utility and 80 miles away from the pacific ocean that there are lessons that can be useful to you but our issues pale in comparison to the issues your dealing with here. first a quick description of our system. its the largest one in oregon serving about 8 hundred thousand people. 25 percent of the state and average a hundred million gallons of water a day. our primary source is the bowling river in the cascade mountains east of the city and two reservoirs and ten million gallons of usable storage. we have a secondary ground storing source on the south side of the colombia river and we have capacity to serve our base needs just by ground water some you ca
our primary source is the bowling river in the cascade mountains east of the city and two reservoirs and ten million gallons of usable storage. we have a secondary ground storing source on the south side of the colombia river and we have capacity to serve our base needs just by ground water some you can count portland among those that believe climate change is real and have been following it for over two decades. the ctional is a national leader. i know i need to tread carefully in san francisco talking about treading in this area but most of you are probably familiar with the list i have up here on this slide. in terms of predicted impacts for continued global warming on western water utilities perhaps it is most fundamental. what we re really struggling with is the notion we may faced increase demands in the summer with reduced supplies. so, in terms of climate change impacts portland is most concerned about. here are five according to me and my staff. i m sure there s more
supplies and water recycling the fact is they have been operating in a water supply deficit. thankfully for that period we ve almost always had above average rain fall. if that occurred today, those residents despite all their plumbing facilities and other efficiency measures would have to reduce demand an additional 70 percent in order to keep from running out of water. the choices faces, them like many in the west are not easy and certainly not cheap. you re going to find a common thread the area of cheap and easy solutions to water supply is over. consider the fact that,mufd, is sponsoring around 8 hundred dollars an acre foot if any of you are paying more than that for incentive programs i would love to know but that probably is setg the pace. the district is considering a plant on san francisco bay to diversify it s water supply, portfolio and supervise a hedge on patterns that are likely to get even more volatile with climate change. yes, it s expensive but how do you v
side that also taps that water reservoir. and fish flows we re currently in the process of pursuing habitat conservation plan to come in compliance in the clean water act so we re very concerned about any impact that could impact our ability to maintain fish flows we re currently agreeing to. next slide. so, in terms of what we ve done to study climate change effects on our system. in 2002 through the university of washington through richard palmer and margaret hahn, i won t go over that now dash maybe later. next slide. a couple mayor studies we conducted is a reduction of our snow pact. the bowling watershed is not a rich environment. we do regularly get snow fall and our highest elevation in there is about 2500 feet. what we do have is a dotted line showing our regular run off of the streams in the and the dark line shows projected what would happen without the snow fall. it s not particularly significant for our municipal supply. one of these reasons is for the late sprin