Water Resources - Clean Water Services

Water Releases Make Tualatin River a Year-Round Resource

The arrival of warm and dry weather and a hot forecast ahead prompted Clean Water Services to begin releasing cool water on May 23, 2025.

An aerial view of where water is released from Scoggins Dam. Part of Hagg Lake is visible on the left, with trees and hills in the background.

Public Works: Advancing Quality of Life for All

How often do you consider where water (and everything you flush along with it) goes after you “go,” or where it flows when it falls as rain, melts as snow, or runs down your driveway from a hose?

Workers fill a trench in the street where pipe work was completed. A piece of heavy machinery, houses, and cars are in the background.

Practical, Proactive, People-Centered: Our Blessedly Boring Budget

Drama and excitement can be fun, but not when it comes to budget and rates planning. You want to know the folks tasked with tackling our region’s long-term water challenges are being as clear-eyed and careful with your hard-earned rate dollars as they are when protecting public health and the environment.

An Aerial view of Butternut Creek, a tributary to the Tualatin River, with heavy vegetation along the banks of the creek and houses backing up to the water.

How Art Larrance Helped Inspire Pure Water Brew

Art Larrance suggested that if you want to talk about water, you need to make beer. From that suggestion bubbled up Pure Water Brew,

Art Larrance and Bill Gaffi inspect a beer glass

Fire in the Belly: Water Treatment Powered by Digestion

These flames are there for a very good reason and are part of normal operations.

A flame burns excess methane out of a digester, against a night sky.

From Unthinkable to Almost Drinkable

Do you wonder what happens to that water after you send it down the drain? Eventually, Washington County’s water ends up back in the Tualatin River, but it goes through quite a process to get there.

A group of people on the catwalk above a primary clarifier at A CWS Water Resource Recovery Facility.

Wapato Lake: A Wetland Restored, and Now a Refuge

Years of Working in Partnership Pays Off at Wapato Lake National Wildlife Refuge.