Despite the usual late summer drop in the volume of water coming from the Baker City’s 10,000-acre watershed, the water supply is keeping up with demand.

The streams and springs that feed the watershed are producing about 2.5 million gallons of water per day, compared with a volume that reached as much as 9 million gallons in mid June and was still at 5 to 6 million gallons daily at the beginning of July.

While summertime water use in town can exceed 7 million gallons a day, that has not been the case so far this year, said Michelle Owen, the city’s public works director.

From July through Aug. 11, daily demand averaged less than 5 million gallons, Owen said.

Temperatures were generally below average during July.

Those usage numbers are likely to rise this month as temperatures have risen to above average over the past week.

“Obviously the longer it stays hot like this the more water we use,” Owen wrote in an email to the Herald. “I would still encourage folks to conserve water, but not because we’re running out, just because it’s the prudent thing to do.”

The U.S. Drought Monitor Index last week increased the drought rating for most of Baker County, including Baker City, from moderate to severe.

To meet the daily demand as the watershed volume drops, the city has been supplementing that source with water from Goodrich Reservoir, at the north end of the watershed in the Elkhorn Mountains about 10 miles west of town.

The city has been drawing about 2.3 million gallons daily from the reservoir, which is one of the city’s two supplementary water sources for late summer and early fall.

The other source is the aquifer storage and recovery well. The city diverts water from the watershed during the winter and spring, when flows are high and demand is low, into the well.

The city then pumps that water back to the surface during the late summer.

Owen said the city has been pumping up to a half-million gallons per day from the well to “top things off” on days when demand increases.

Both Goodrich Reservoir, which holds 210 million gallons, and the well, which can hold 200 million gallons, were filled to capacity when summer started.

See more in the August 19 issue of the Baker City Herald.