By Peter Rice

Pilot staff writer

The seven members of the Hernandez household don't visit the Chetco River every day, but since they're hooked up to Brookings city water, they do drink it, shower in it, wash their clothes in it, and fill up their hot tub with it.

In fact, since 60 percent of the human body is water, the seven members of the Hernandez household are about 60 percent Chetco River, minus whatever milk, soda or bottled water they happen to drink.

A family with five growing children, they naturally use a lot of water. The most recent bill cashed in at $68.43, according to Tony, the father.

"I paid it today," he said Monday with a look of resignation.

And these days, like many families on the Wild Rivers Coast, the Hernandezes are looking ahead to higher summer water bills.

The cars will need washing. The kids might need more showers after some serious outdoor recreation sessions. More laundry too. About once a week, they will water the lawn for about 15 minutes.

And what about the occasional water fight with the family arsenal of Super Soaker squirt guns?

"Don't even go there," said Gina, the mother.

By themselves, the Hernandez household has practically no impact on the Chetco River. Trouble is, they share the waterway with several thousand of their closest friends, and those several thousand people share it with several thousand wild salmon and steelhead.

Meanwhile, if Brookings grows by 3 percent every year, the city population will double in 20 years.

And the next 100? That's anybody's guess.

Here's what is known: If people take no water out of the river, there will be plenty of water for the fish. But if people take all the water out of the river, there won't be any fish.

Somewhere in between those two extremes is a tipping point where enough water diversion heats up the river and causes a fish kill.

But how much is too much? Nobody knows.

"I don't know what we can say about that tipping point," said Todd Confer, the district biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW).

But if a problem happens, it's likely to be in the summer, when the flow is lowest. According to data from the United States Geological Survey (USGS), winter flows reached as high as 76,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) in 1996. The 1964 flood, according to USGS estimates, peaked at 85,000. But in the summer of 1987, the gauge measured only a relative trickle of 42 cfs.

On Tuesday, coming off several weeks without significant rain, the river flowed at 348 cfs. One month ago, the figure stood at about 8,000 cfs.

As the water supply dwindles each summer, demand for it spikes.

"Anything to do with water is more appealing the hotter it gets," said Don Wilcox, the public works director for the city of Brookings. City water customers will commonly use 1 million gallons per day in April, he said. But on June 28, 2003, an 80-degree Saturday, demand jumped to 2.6 million gallons.

So far, that's the city record, but as more and more people make connections to the city system, Wilcox said he wouldn't be surprised to see a 3-million-gallon day soon. By 2025, his projections show a possible daily demand of 5.8 million gallons. As demand grows, so does the percentage of weak summer flows people gobble up.

The situation is akin to running toward an invisible cliff.

"We know that at some point if you keep sucking water out of the river, it's going to impact fish," Confer said.

But the problem does have some potential solutions. If people could somehow capture extra water in the winter and save it, they could preserve the flow in the summer.

ODFW would like to see that happen, Confer said. The agency also wants Brookings and Harbor water utilities to combine in some way, review what water rights they actually need to expand into the 20-year growth boundary, and then give the rest back to the state to preserve stream flow.

The possibilities for storage certainly exist, Wilcox said. With some modest retrofitting, a dam on Ferry Creek, a Chetco tributary, could store 29 million gallons of water, about ten days worth of peak demand. Building the dam wall up a bit might also add an additional 26 million gallons of storage, he said.

But before that all happens, Wilcox added, the city wants better data on river flows. The gauge maintained by the USGS isn't very accurate, he said, and before the city spends big money on storage projects, it needs to make sure the work is actually necessary.

The development company HW3 has offered to donate a new gauge and supply a hydrologist to take care of it. On Monday, Bill Yocum, the chair of the Chetco River Watershed Council, said that panel will be working with the company to facilitate the installation.

Meanwhile, the city maintains a curtailment plan aimed at keeping demand to a minimum during low flow periods. If demand hits 2.9 million gallons per day, the city announces a voluntary cutback. But as demand grows, so do the restrictions. By the fourth stage, residents would be subjected to "maximum daily allotments" set by the city manager and restrictions on watering lawns and gardens.

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Reach Peter Rice at price@currypilot.com.