The City of Cottage Grove recently applied for a grant with the Oregon Health Authority to help update its Drinking Water Protection Plan. The city is hoping to be prepared for water-related emergencies and learn from 2018 when cyanotoxins, a harmful algae, entered Salem’s water system.
Drinking Water Protection Plans help make sure that a city’s drinking water is disinfected and safe to drink. The plan needs to be updated every couple of years to ensure that it can address changes happening in the city or other environmental factors, such as microplastics, cyanotoxins, and PFAs (forever chemicals).
For Cottage Grove, changes included a possible risk of harmful algae blooming in Dorena Lake, which is upstream from the city’s water intake facility on the Row River, as well as ash from 2020’s wildfires that made it harder to clean filters. The city currently operates under the 2015 Drinking Water Protection Plan…