Quench: The Cleaner, Greener, More Affordable Water Cooler for Portland

Portland Water Quality: Yesterday

Pioneers William Overton and Asa Lovejoy discovered the site for Portland on a 1840s canoe expedition. By 1862, residents recognized that private wells wouldn’t be sufficient to sustain the growing population and established a system to pipe water to residents from Caruthers Creek, Balch Creek, and Willamette River. However, by 1886, waste from upstream factories and towns caused a pollution crisis. City planners set about creating a gravity-flow system from Bull Run River and the surrounding watershed, which would provide enough drinking water for the growing city for years to come.

Once Portland city officials had established an abundant water source from the Bull Run River, they turned their attention to protecting the water supply from contamination from the local logging industry. The Forest Reserve Act of 1891 was enacted to prohibit settlement in the 142,000-acre Bull Run National Forest, which surrounds The Bull Run River. In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt signed into law the Bull Run Trespass Act to further protect the reserve and water supply.

Portland Water Quality: Today

Today, Portland’s water sources include one natural lake, Bull Run Lake, two artificial reservoirs, Ben Morrow Lake and Reservoir 2, and the Bull Run River. The water from these sources travels through aboveground pipes to concrete reservoirs and tanks throughout the city, some of which date from the early 1900s! The raw water from Bull Run Watershed is not filtered before distribution and has several naturally occurring contaminants, like sediment and bacteria, as well as added contaminants like chlorine, ammonia, and sodium hydroxide.

Quench Water Coolers – A Discover a Better Drinking Water System for Portland

No need to worry about what your office’s drinking water might have picked up on its journey to your glass. Quench offers a full complement of filtration and purification technologies to remove sediment, reduce chemical contaminants, including lead, and get rid of off-tastes and odors. That’s how we can guarantee that Quench office water coolers produce crisp, clean, great-tasting water – and at a fraction of the price of bottled water delivery services.