The Yachats area got between 1.28 and 2.13 inches of rain over the weekend, but it won’t be enough to ease first-level water restrictions that the city instituted several weeks ago.
The storm that blew through the area dropped 1.28 inches of rain at Yachats’ wastewater treatment plant, according to city records. Nearby, weather watcher Adam Altson measured 2.38 inches in his manual rain gauge. Three miles up the Yachats River, Jim Adler recorded 2.13 inches of rain by the time the storm passed Saturday night.
The rain totals were the most since June 12-13 when Altson measured 2.01 inches of rain and April 24 when Adler had 1.11 inches.
The city of Yachats gets its drinking water from Reedy and Salmon creeks. The rainfall upped the creeks’ combined flow from 268 gallons per minute on Tuesday, Sept. 14 to 320 gallons per minute Monday, Sept. 20, said city water treatment plant operator Rick McClung. When their combined flows dropped below 275 gallons per minute, the city instituted its Phase 1 water restriction, which asks people to conserve water and limits some activities.
Although the creeks are fine now, McClung said the weekend rain is not enough to easy the Phase 1 restrictions, with the central coast entering another stretch of dry weather.
The treatment plant can produce 450,000 gallons of water a day, when the two creeks are flowing well. McClung said the average total daily water use in the city is currently 150,000 gallons a day. Its storage tanks have a capacity of 1.7 million gallons.
