SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2020
BAKER CITY HERALD — 3A
COMMUNITY
BAKER CITY DAILY WATER USE*
Photo courtesy of Baker City Public Works Department
Goodrich Reservoir holds about 210 million gallons. Michelle Owen, Baker City’s pub-
lic works director, expects to draw the reservoir down to about 10 million gallons.
Continued from Page 1A
“People are just spending
more time at home,” Owen
said.
In the last week of July,
Owen, citing the city’s water
curtailment ordinance, asked
residents to voluntarily curb
their water use. That’s Stage
1 of the ordinance.
The city also cut irrigation
by 30% at parks, Mount Hope
Cemetery and the city-owned
Quail Ridge Golf Course,
Owen said. That can save
around 250,000 gallons per
day, she said.
She said she also will ask
that the Baker School District
reduce irrigation on its prop-
erties.
Water consumption dipped
after Owen’s public request
in late July, but she said the
trend was short-lived.
Daily water use exceeded
5 million gallons per day on 6
days between July 20-31, but
has stayed below 5 million
gallons every day since Aug. 1.
However, the average daily
water use rose slightly, to 4.5
million gallons per day, the
week of Aug. 17-23 compared
to the previous week’s aver-
age of 4.46 million gallons per
day.
Water use dipped the last
week of August along with
temperatures, as the fi nal
2 days of August were the
coolest of the month. Average
daily use was 3.76 million
gallons the last 3 days.
But Owen said demand
crept back up to about 4.5
At The
Library
Drive-in hours at 2400
Resort St. are Monday
through Friday, 9 a.m. to
5 p.m., and Saturday and
Sunday from noon -4 p.m.
FICTION
• “Chaos,” Iris Johan-
sen
• “The Lying Life of
Adult,” Elena Ferrante
• “The Mist,” Ragnar
Jonasson
• “Kingmaker,” Marga-
ret Weiss
• “The Oregon Trail ro-
mance collection,” Short
story collection
NONFICTION
• “Live Free or Die,”
Sean Hannity
• “Becoming Duchess
Goldblatt,” Anonymous
• “Begin Again,” Eddie
Glaude
• “The Imposters,”
Steve Benen
• “Surrounded by
Idiots,” Thomas Erikson
DVDS
• “Dreamkatcher”
(Horror)
• “His Dark Materials”
(TV Series)
• “Legacy of Lies”
(Action)
• “Olympic Dreams”
(Comedy)
• “Westside vs the
World” (Documentary)
“I’m more nervous than I was 2 weeks ago.”
— Michelle Owen, Baker City public works director
2015/2020
HIGH TEMP 2015/2020
8/1
8/2
8/3
8/4
8/5
8/6
8/7
8/8
8/9
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8/11
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8/20
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8/28
8/29
8/30
8/31
4.54/4.75
4.52/4.71
4.24/4.93
4.58/4.77
4.56/4.62
4.09/4.13
4.17/4.47
3.95/4.39
3.87/4.49
3.91/4.74
4.71/4.52
4.93/4.19
4.69/4.25
4.21/4.63
3.99/4.42
3.74/4.52
3.98/4.58
3.99/4.56
4.09/4.65
3.99/4.46
4.01/4.56
3.77/4.31
3.86/4.41
4.29/4.27
4.29/3.14
4.26/3.23
4.10/3.57
3.76/3.86
3.13/3.83
2.85/3.84
3.72/3.63
99/91
98/95
82/85
88/90
82/95
78/83
84/78
86/84
89/81
87/88
95/93
95/75
97/82
89/85
80/95
82/97
82/99
86/98
85/85
90/87
81/93
89/84
86/90
90/76
90/86
96/85
89/85
80/85
87/87
69/74
78/70
AVG.
4.09/4.30
86.3/86.5
million gallons per day as
a Labor Day weekend heat
wave began.
“I’m more nervous than I
was 2 weeks ago,” she said.
That said, Owen isn’t
suggesting the city impose
mandatory restrictions
under Stage 2 of the water
ordinance. Under Stage 2,
residents are allowed to use
city water (not including
wells) to irrigate lawns and
gardens only every other
day (based on whether their
address ends with an odd or
even number), and the city
can fi ne violators $500.
Before doing that, Owen
said she would cease or
severely limit irrigation at
parks and other city proper-
ties.
The water curtailment or-
dinance also has Stages 3 and
4, under which lawn watering
with city water is banned
outright.
(That ordinance, No. 53.25,
is available through the city’s
website, www.bakercity.com.
Click on the “Municipal Code”
link and type “water curtail-
ment” in the search bar.)
The city has three sources
of water.
The primary source is its
10,000-acre watershed on the
east slopes of the Elkhorn
Mountains about 10 miles
west of town. The city taps a
dozen springs and streams,
which for much of the year
have suffi cient volume to
meet the city’s needs.
The city also has two
supplementary sources —
Goodrich Reservoir, a natural
lake high in the Elkhorns
that was dammed decades
ago to increase its capacity
to 210 million gallons, and a
well.
The city has a state permit
allowing it to divert up to 200
million gallons from the wa-
tershed into the well annually,
creating an additional reser-
voir, this one below ground
rather than above.
In a typical summer, Owen
said, by around the fi rst of
August, as water use rises
and the fl ow of the springs
and streams declines, the
city starts to supplement its
supply with Goodrich and, if
needed, the well.
As it almost always does,
Goodrich reached its full ca-
pacity this spring, Owen said.
The city started tapping
the reservoir in late July, and
Owen expects to draw it down
to about 10 million gallons.
The city also has to release
water from the reservoir for
one Baker Valley landowner
whose water right is older
than the city’s, she said.
The city used some well
water in July, and Owen said
she expects to start pumping
water from it next week.
She said she prefers to use
water from Goodrich because
it’s colder than water from the
well.
The well is also a less desir-
able source — although the
water still meets all federal
standards — once the injected
water has been pumped and
water from the aquifer itself
starts entering the distribution
system.
That groundwater has
higher concentrations of iron
and manganese, Owen said.
The amounts are below federal
standards for drinking water
but in the past, before the city
received its permit to divert
mountain water into the well,
residents sometimes re-
ported that the well water had
stained clothes.
Owen said she plans to have
city crews fi nish its summer
pipeline replacement project
in the watershed earlier than
expected. The city has for more
than a decade been replac-
ing the leak-prone concrete
pipeline, sections of which are
nearly a century old, with PVD
pipe and, in sections where
the water is at high pressure,
ductile iron.
This summer’s project is
between Elk and Salmon
creeks, on the south end of the
watershed, and while workers
have been installing new pipe
the city hasn’t been able to tap
Salmon Creek, Owen said.
The stream doesn’t supply
much water in late summer,
but she said she’d like to maxi-
mize the available water to
ease the demand on Goodrich
Reservoir and the well.
Owen said 2020 has been
similar to 2015, in terms of
water use and weather (see
chart above).
One difference between the
two years is that Owen became
concerned about water usage
earlier in 2015. That year the
city asked residents on July 2
to voluntarily cut back.
The city did not have to
impose Stage 2 restrictions
that summer.
SCHOOLS
student to meet safe social
distancing recommendations.
As the comprehensive
distance learning instruction
begins, the student bodies at
both South Baker Intermedi-
ate and Brooklyn Primary
School, which has grades 1-3,
will be separated into two
groups. Group A students will
receive instruction from 8 a.m.
to 11 a.m. with their teach-
ers available from 11 a.m. to
11:30 a.m. Monday through
Thursday. Group B students
will have online classes from
noon to 3 p.m. with teachers’
offi ce hours set from 3 p.m. to
3:30 p.m.
During the fi rst week of
school, students will attend
classes Tuesday through
Friday to make up for the day
off on Monday because of the
Labor Day holiday.
During a Baker School
Board meeting in August, Jodi
Thew, the district’s director of
special programs and curricu-
lum, said students will meet
virtually with their teachers
and classmates through the
Zoom videostreaming com-
puter app. Assignments will be
given to be completed during
the remainder of the day and
paraprofessional educators
will provide tutoring.
Students in Grades 7-12
will attend classes through a
seven-period day for 30 to 40
minutes per class and a 5- to
15-minute break between
classes. Teachers have offi ce
hours from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. and
tutoring will be available from
3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., Thew said.
Students in Grades 7-12
who choose the total online
system will receive instruction
through Eagle Cap Innovative
Junior/Senior High School.
Witty said Thursday that
the total number of students
who have chosen the total
online instruction is about 125
in Grades 7-12 and about 93
students in Grades K-6.
While the District hopes to
move to in-person instruction
as soon as possible, the Baker
School Board and administra-
tors will be keeping an eye
on the county’s coronavirus
numbers with the governor’s
new metrics — announced
Aug. 11 — in mind.
The new metrics were devel-
oped specifi cally for schools in
low population density coun-
ties with fewer than 6 people
per square mile, such as Baker.
Under the metrics, schools
in low population density
counties can have in-person
classes by working with their
local health offi cials to deter-
mine that there is no commu-
nity spread and that the total
COVID-19 cases in the prior
three weeks were 30 or fewer,
with less than half of the cases
reported in the last week of the
three-week period.
As the school district staff
was preparing for the reopen-
ing of schools the week of Aug.
24, one of the employees tested
positive for the coronavirus.
Witty announced the positive
case among his staff on Aug.
27, stating that the one who
tested positive was quarantin-
ing at home. Only one other
employee was in close contact
with that person, and also
self-quarantined, Witty said
Thursday.
“The process worked,” Witty
said of holding the spread of
the virus to just two people.
“The systems in place
worked, by physical distanc-
ing, wearing face masks and
sanitation practices, we less-
ened the chance of infection
in our district and among our
staff,” Witty said.
The focus for now is on
working any bugs out of the
online learning system and
continuing to follow the safety
protocols, he said.
He urged any parents
who have not yet registered
their students or picked up
Chromebooks or iPads or who
need help securing adequate
bandwidth to connect their
child’s computer with the
District system to call their
child’s building principal to
make arrangements as soon
as possible.
“We’ll go above and beyond
to make sure they get their
equipment,” Witty said.
And, in the meantime,
Witty said the District will be
watching the metrics and how
they apply in Baker County
to allow the schools to move to
in-person instruction as soon
as possible..
But he doesn’t want to
jump into in-person instruc-
tion only to have to jump out
again because of an increase
in the number of positive
coronavirus cases in the com-
munity.
The schools will rely on the
advice of the Baker County
Health Department and
continue to ask community
members to follow the safety
protocols established to help
stem the spread of COVID-19,
which would hasten the Dis-
trict’s ability to offer in-person
classes.
“It’s important we stick to
a path for a period of time,”
Witty said, for the benefi t of
both the staff and the stu-
dents and their families.
Continued from Page 1A
Even though enrollment is
down this year at South Baker,
staff was added in preparation
for the possibility of returning
to in-person classes later in the
year, Bates said.
This year’s fourth-grade
class has 39 fewer students
than last year’s sixth-grade
class, which has moved on to
Baker Middle School, Bates
said.
Still, six teachers were
needed for each grade level
at the school. Last year there
were fi ve teachers per grade
level.
Because teacher availability
is at a premium, Bates said
three of his specialists will be
returning to classroom teach-
ing positions this year, includ-
ing the school’s dean of stu-
dents, Cassie Moore, who will
teach students in the all online
program; math coach, Jandy
Eskew, will teach fi fth grade;
and Title I math and reading
teacher Dawn O’Grady will
teach fourth grade. The Title
I instruction will be embed-
ded in each classroom, but
the other two positions, math
coach and dean of students,
are luxuries the school will do
without in the coming year,
Bates said.
The additional teachers
were needed to keep class
sizes low in preparation for
returning to in-person classes.
Gov. Kate Brown’s guidelines
for schools offering in-person
instruction require 35 square
feet of classroom space per
*million gallons
Sources: Baker City Public Works Department, National Weather Service
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