Each citizen in Oregon City has an active roll in keeping our water supply safe to drink. Just as a "green thumb" takes care of their plants, as citizens we need to become "Blue Thumbs" and take action to conserve and protect our water resources everyday. To help our customers learn about water conservation here are 25 basic facts:

• The first municipal water filtration works opened in Paisley, Scotland, in 1832.
• Over 79,000 tons of Chlorine is consumed and used per year in the United States and Canada to treat our water.
• Ninety-seven percent of all the water that is found on the earth is "salt water" found in the ocean and the seas.
• One percent of the earth's water is available for drinking. The other 2% is still frozen!
• Our human bodies are about 2/3 water; some parts of the body contain more water than others. For example, 70% of your skin is water.
• There are more than 56,000 community water systems providing water in the United States today.
• There is roughly 38 billion gallons of water produced by public water providers per day, in the United States for public use.
•  There is approximately one million miles of domestic water pipeline and aqueducts to carry water in the United States. That's enough pipe to circle the Earth 40 times!
• Wells drilled in the United States for domestic, farming, commercial and water testing total around 800,000 per year.
• The typical household in the US consumes 50% of their water by irrigating landscape. On the inside, toilets use the most water, with an average of 27 gallons per person per day.
• The United States Congress passed a Safe Drinking Water Act in 1974 to ensure that drinking water is safe for human consumption. The Act requires public water systems to monitor and treat drinking water for safety.
• Thirteen million households get their water from their own private well and are responsible for treating and pumping the water themselves.
• In 1990, 197 million pounds of toxic chemicals were released into waterways.
• On a daily basis the average requirement for fresh drinking water is about 40 billion gallons a day, with 300 billion gallons used which is untreated for agricultural and commercial purposes.
• Human survival requires water; the human body can only survive five to seven days without it. Whereas the body can survive approximately a month without food.
• The average person uses about 100 gallons of water a day at home.
• Between 15 to 25 gallons of water is used for the typical five minute shower.
• An eight-ounce glass can be filled 15,000 times for the same cost of a six-pack of pop.
• Hand washing dishes can use up to 20 gallons of water to wash dishes. An automatic dishwasher uses approximately 9 to 12 gallons.
• If every home in America had a water faucet that dripped once a second, 928 million gallons of water per day would be wasted.
• A dairy cow must drink four gallons of water a day to produce one gallon of milk for human consumption.
• One gallon of water weighs approximately 8.5 pounds.
• One inch of rainfall drops 7000 gallons or nearly 30 tons of water on a 60' x 108' piece of land.
• Three hundred million gallons of water are needed to produce a single day's supply of U.S newsprint.
• A person should consume 2.25 quarts of water per day (from all sources of water, food etc.) to maintain health.