Wildfire effects on water quality

This presentation shares recent research EPA staff have been conducting related to wildfire and water quality. The research topics include the literature review in progress, current in review research on long-term trends in water quality and public drinking water systems after wildfire. In addition, EPA-Corvallis has been conducting periodic grab samples since the 2020 Labor Day fires and tracking nutrients, carbon, metals and sediments.

Impact/Purpose

Oregon/Washington 2021 Water Year Recap and 2022 Outlook  (November 16-17). The Climatologist’s Office of Washington invited PESD scientist Jana Compton to present a talk on “Wildfire effects on water quality” at their the annual meeting.  This meeting focuses on sharing impacts regarding the weather/climate of the 2021 water year in the PNW and will focus on the exceptional drought that was so widespread. Jana’s talk will provide additional background to discuss the possibility of continued multi-year drought and discussion of the impacts of this drought. The planning group came across an recent CPHEA paper on wildfire and drinking water, and the multi-year impacts to drinking water systems from wildfire was seen as of interest to this group.  The audience is a wide mix of tribal, federal, state, and local agencies, irrigation districts, water systems, agricultural entities and university researchers.  

Citation

Compton, J., James Markwiese, Joe Ebersole, S. Leibowitz, A. Handler, R. Coulombe, J. Lin, J. Greydanus, M. Pennino, M. Beyene, S. LeDuc, Ryan A Hill, Cheryl A. Brown, Jim Kaldy, AND J. Renee Brooks. Wildfire effects on water quality. Oregon/Washington Water Year 2021 Meeting, Online meeting, OR, November 16 - 17, 2021.