How much does it cost to water a young tree?

By Brighton West

There’s a lot of talk about sewer and water rates going up in Portland, and Friends of Trees has heard from some residents that “they don’t want to plant trees because they can’t afford to water them.”  So we got out a pencil and paper and calculated the costs.

Follow the math: Water costs $2.733 / CCF*.  A CCF = 748 gallons, so a gallon costs 0.36 cents ($0.0036.) We recommend watering 15 gallons per week, and our watering season lasts about 16 weeks.  So the cost to water a young tree is 88 cents for a summer.

So go out and encourage folks to plant trees! The cost of water, while rising, is really low. Even with the proposed rate increase, watering a young tree will cost less than $1 for an entire summer, unless you are using bottled water to water your plants. If you are, we need to have a chat.

* Because of the way the city calculates sewer usage based on winter water consumption, most people don’t pay sewer charges to water their plants during the summer. Check out the details here.

–West is Program Director for Friends of Trees.