Late August rainfall and new Southwest Lincoln agreement likely means no September water restrictions in Yachats

 

By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews

A good hard rain on the last day of August and a new agreement with a neighboring water district likely means there will be no water restrictions in Yachats this fall despite a very dry last four months.

Weather watchers around Yachats recorded nearly a half-inch of rain Thursday, Aug. 31 to help ease the strain on the city’s water supply. Up until the last day of the month it has been a very dry May, June, July and August.

Yachats can institute first phase of water restrictions when the total flow in Reedy and Salmon creeks – which feed the city’s water treatment plant — drops below 275 gallons per minute. But the flow was 295 gallons per minute mid-day Thursday before .47 inches of rain fell.

Although nice, the bit of rain may not have made the difference in restrictions.

Yachats and the Southwest Lincoln County Water Peoples Utility District have agreed in principle to have the district supply the city with up to 100 gallons a minute of water if flows drop below the restriction limit, said Yachats water supervisor Rick McClung. The agreement — which has been signed by the city of Yachats and is awaiting Southwest Lincoln board approval — is just for emergency or drought situations until a more formal, long-term agreement can be drawn up, he said.

“It’s mainly so we won’t have to go to the water restriction stage,” McClung said.

The pipes from the two systems connect at a pump located on the west side of U.S. Highway 101 just north of the Overleaf Lodge. If ever implemented, McClung said the city would pump water from Southwest Lincoln to its 1 million gallon storage tank on Radar Road.

Yachats’ treatment plant that can produce 450,000 gallons of water a day under normal circumstances and the city system can store 1.7 million gallons of water. The city has just under 1,000 customers, including 20 commercial accounts — six of which account for 35 percent of all water consumption in the city.

Phase 1 restrictions simply ask people to use water outside on odd/even numbered days based on the last digit of their street address. But the usual result is greater use because people become aware of the issue and begin to water their property more.

Yachats last instituted much tighter Phase 2 water use restrictions in 2015. Phase 3 restrictions would lead to the likelihood of stopping motels from doing their laundry on site.

As usual, demand peaks on the weekends when more tourists are in town, McClung says, using up to 250,000 gallons a day. Demand usually peaks over the Fourth of July holiday and stays steady through August.

The rain and the seasonal drop in tourists should give Yachats some breathing room on water use.

What weather watchers saw

As for the weather watchers who provide YachatsNews with data, here’s what they recorded in August:

• At the Yachats wastewater treatment plant, the city recorded .39 inches of rain in August for a total of 34.22 inches for the eight months of 2023. That’s about 85 percent of the 10-year average;
• Adam Altson, who lives along Ocean View Drive, measured .48 inches of rain and has 36.71 inches for the year;
• Julie Bailey, who lives at the 220 foot elevation level of Radar Road recorded a half inch of rain in August – including the .47 inches on Thursday – and has 40.07 inches so far this year;
• Donald Tucker, who lives two miles north of Yachats, recorded .53 inches in August and has 36.93 inches for the year;
• Jim Adler, who lives three miles up the Yachats River, measured .45 inches of rain in August and has 48.99 inches for the year; and
• Bob Williams, who lives eight miles upriver, recorded .37 inches in August but has 61.24 for the year.

Other observations:

• Adler: This August was wetter than 10 of the past 15 Augusts.
• Altson: A “fairly routine” August with the month’s high temperature of 70.9 on Aug 14, and a low of 47.9 on Aug. 19. The peak wind gust was 36 mph the night of Aug. 24.
• Bailey: There were 26 days with a high of 70 degrees or more and a high of 84 degrees on Aug. 14.
• Tucker: “… even with the bit of August wetness, my overall average, going back to 2007 shows August still continuing on a slight downslope while the temperatures, both high and low, trickle upward.”