Shedding Light on the Watershed

The North Santiam River watershed provides Salem's drinking water. A watershed is the area of land within which all the rainfall and snowmelt reach a common body of water - a stream, river, lake, wetland, or aquifer. The reason we talk about a watershed, and not just the river, is that the way land is used in the watershed affects the quality and quantity of water it produces.

Vital Statistics

Salem's watershed covers more than 490,000 acres of land stretching from the Cascade Mountain peaks of Mt. Jefferson and Three-Fingered Jack to the City's water intake above Stayton. Approximately 80 percent of the land in the watershed is owned and managed by the United States Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and the Oregon Department of Forestry. The agencies manage for multiple uses including timber harvest, recreation, and water resources. Land use in the entire watershed is a combination of wilderness, lumber, recreation, agriculture, and rural residential.

A few small communities are located along the river. The combined population of Gates, Idanha, Detroit, and Mill City is about 2,700.