NASA partners with EWEB to assess wildfire impacts to drinking water
How strong is Eugene’s reputation for protecting our rivers?
It’s so good, it can be seen from space!
In another example of EWEB’s innovative approach to protecting the McKenzie River from evolving threats, EWEB is partnering with NASA’s Earth Information Center (EIC) and fire ecology researchers throughout the region to study the effects of wildfires on our watersheds.
In a recent video, NASA featured EWEB’s role as a key collaborator in its work to develop remote sensing capabilities and new modelling tools to advise watershed managers on wildfire threats and impacts.
“Our forests and more than just trees. They're part of a living water filtration system that provides millions of people with clean drinking water,” Julie Padowski – Washington State University Co-Director for the Center for Environmental Research, Education and Outreach, says in the video. “A severe fire burns vegetation that normally holds soil in place. And then when it rains, instead of soil slowly absorbing and filtering to the forest, it rushes across the burned ground. This increases the risk of flooding, mudslides, and debris flows into water supplies downstream.”
EWEB’s Drinking Water Source Protection (DWSP) Team has been facing the reality of these impacts since the 2020 Holiday Farm Fire.
“We haven't really had those kind of larger, catastrophic wildfires in this area before the Holiday Farm Fire that came through burned almost 200,000 acres, and that was a concern for our drinking water as well,” says EWEB Water Resources Manager Susan Fricke. “As a public utility, the money we operate with is coming from people that are paying their water and electric bills. So we love working with NASA's supported research because we can find the most efficient way to use those funds to protect source water, to treat our water, and to do all of our operations.”
In the immediate aftermath of the Holiday Farm Fire, EWEB’s Hayden Bridge Drinking Water Treatment Plant was able to effectively manage the challenges caused by the fire. And the DWSP Team has been working with landowners, local and federal agencies, and management partners to protect water quality by restoring and fortifying the McKenzie River in the areas that burned.
Nevertheless, bringing in more information and collaborators like NASA to safeguard the source of drinking water for 200,000 people in the Eugene area provides clear advantages.
“To maximize the use of new modeling tools to track potential rainfall, predict debris flows, and allocate limited resources appropriately can be extremely beneficial to natural resource managers addressing post wildfire impacts,” says EWEB Environmental Specialist David Donahue. “It really takes a community and having their expertise and knowledge – and partnership with NASA – helps us folks as boots on the ground to make better decisions on how we manage these forested areas.”
