MOST OF US TAKE OUR WATER for granted. It comes out of the faucet, clear and sweet. It glistens in the bright sun as a billion gallons a day roll down the McKenzie. It flushes our toilets, cleans our dishes and waters our lawns.

Yet 30 years ago, Oregonians were caught up in. a campaign to clean up the Willamette River, led by a popular Portland television reporter who became one of the state's greatest governors, Tom McCall.

We turned a sewer for industry into a river again. And then we forgot about it. Attention shifted to other environmental battlegrounds: wilderness, clear-cutting, old growth forests, the spotted owl, salmon.

Now, like the water itself, we've come full circle.

Clean water is emerging as the environmental front-burner issue of the late 1990's and into the next millennium. The outcome may change everything from logging practices to how we wash our cars.

"As we move into the next century, water will be our most important liquid, not oil," said Doug Larson, one of the region's top independent water-quality researchers. "We've focused on old growth forests and endangered species. Now water quality needs to be elevated to the top of our list of priorities."

Across the state, Oregonians are raising new concerns about the quality of their water. Consider these developments over the past year:

• Mayors and city councilors in Eugene, Salem, Sandy and elsewhere have fought plans to log in their watersheds, fearing that increased erosion will muddy their drinking water supplies.
• In Florence, citizens want a moratorium on growth because the strained sewer system must release raw sewage into the Siuslaw River during heavy rainstorms.
• In west Eugene, Hyundai's computer chip factory has prompted concerns about sediment and possible pollution of Willow Creek.
• Scientists' discovery of fish with skeletal deformities in the Willamette has prompted calls for curbs on agricultural pesticides and fertilizers. Meanwhile, anglers have been warned not to eat too many fish from parts of the river because of high levels of mercury, dioxin and other chemicals.
• Leaking pit toilets are blamed for a decline in Waldo Lake's clarity, spurring the U.S. Forest Service to spend $750,000 to fix the problems.
• And in Eastern Oregon, a federal judge has told the Forest Service that it must get state water-quality permits before allowing any new cattle grazing near streams.

"It's pretty obvious that water quality is the next spotted owl," said Sue Olson, spokeswoman for the Willamette National Forest in Eugene.

And although there are problems, Oregon remains blessed with a lot of clean, high-quality water. Many people are worried we'll mess up a good thing.

The issue is also gaining more prominence as people learn more about ecosystems and how they work, according to conservationists, scientists and others. Clean water can mean healthy forests and good habitat for wildlife and fish. Good forest habitat can mean high-quality water for cities downstream.

"That's where it all comes home to roost: in our water quality," said Carrie Stilweil, an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Clinic in Eugene. "When we don't exercise good stewardship of our forests, of our ranch lands, of our farmlands, it all eventually shows up in our water. Water quality is the canary in the coal mine."

Environmentalists take lead

Environmentalists are behind much of the focus on water quality. Conservation groups have formed the Forest Water Alliance, which is using state and federal clean water laws to zero in on some familiar targets: logging, grazing and mining on public lands.

A member of the alliance, the Oregon Natural Resources Council, was behind a letter seven Eugene City Council members recently sent to ask the U.S. Forest Service to back off on planned logging in the McKenzie River watershed, the source of Eugene's drinking water.

Council members said they became concerned about continued logging in the watershed after last year's floods, in which sediment believed to be from logging-caused landslides choked the McKenzie and forced the Eugene Water & Electric Board to limit its water intake.

"ONRC and others are using this as yet another way to stop the logging of trees," said Chris West, spokesman for the Northwest Forestry Association, which represents timber companies.

Environmentalists acknowledge a stepped-up campaign on water issues but say they've always been concerned with clean water. They also say their. efforts simply reflect public sentiment.

"We find there's an incredible amount of public support for protecting drinking water supplies in many of these watersheds," said Regna Merritt, water protection advocate for the ONRC.

Conservationists have also discovered that the 25-year-old federal Clean Water Act can be a powerful tool to take on so-called "nonpoint" sources of pollution - the runoff that comes from streets, parking lots, logging, cattle grazing, farm fields and other sources that are hard to pinpoint.

"People used to think only of factories causing pollution," said Stilwell, the environmental attorney. "Now, a lot of people see land-use practices as being a big culprit."

A federal court ruling last October ordering the Forest Service to get state approval for grazing permits marked the first time the Clean Water Act was applied to a nonpoint source, she said.

The lawsuit claimed that cow droppings and erosion from trampled stream banks were polluting the streams. If the ruling holds up on appeal, the Clean Water Act will be "a tremendous tool" in similar challenges, Stilwell said.

The push to protect our water isn't confined to environmental groups.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has urged the Forest Service to protect municipal watersheds. He has also ordered a congressional investigation into the degree that logging and road building

contributed to massive levels of sediment that flowed out of the mountains and into streams during the February 1996 flooding.

Gov. John Kitzhaber has made water quality a top priority as well. He formed a special task force earlier this year to deal with water quality concerns in the Willamette River and its tributaries, where 70 percent of

Oregonians get their drinking water. He designed a plan to rescue coho salmon that relies heavily on improving stream habitat.

And he formed the Healthy Streams Partnership, a historic agreement signed by the governor's office, the Legislature, farmers and timber companies to clean up segments of 900 Oregon rivers identified by the state as having poor quality.

The two plans will funnel millions of dollars - including about $150 million from the timber industry - to local watershed councils with a goal of developing water protection plans for 91 watersheds across Oregon within 10 years. The local McKenzie Watershed Council is considered one of the best organized in the state.

Cities play new role

Elected city officials are also getting into the act. They see a growing pro-environment population that wants to protect drinking water, and see logging and farming as the main polluters.

Twenty years ago, it was almost unheard of for a mayor or city councilor to openly complain about logging. Now, with the industry in decline, the political and demographic winds are changing along with the legions of out-of-staters migrating here every year.

Salem Mayor Mike Swaim was one of the first to complain about logging in his city's watershed after the 1996 floods, protesting Forest Service plans to continue logging in the North Santiam watershed.

Erosion from clear-cuts and logging roads was blamed for allowing sediment to seep into the river during the flooding. The debris was so thick that Salem had to shut its water-treatment plant for nearly two weeks and ration water.

The Salem City Council passed a resolution last year urging the Forest Service to stop logging in the watershed, at least until the Environmental Protection Agency could study the impact on water quality.

The council has since backed off, signing an agreement with the agency calling for more monitoring of federal logging and its impact. And the city is spending $1 million to install more filters to handle higher sediment levels during major storms.

Several other cities followed Salem's lead. Portland, for example, is concerned about logging in the Little Sandy River, a potential source of water for the city's booming population and industry.

In Sandy, a former timber town of 5,000 east of Portland, retired Forest Service employee Margaret Holman led an effort while on the City Council earlier this year to try to stop a federal timber sale in the city's watershed, Alder Creek.

The council failed to stop the logging, planned for an area where soils are shallow and unstable, possibly allowing more sediment into Alder Creek. The stream already has the highest erosion from timber harvesting among 15 watersheds surveyed by the Mount Hood National Forest.

"There's an increasing awareness of our water resources," Holman said. "We've had a big population influx into Oregon by people who've seen what has happened to the water quality where they came from. They don't want It to happen here."

Don Francis, head of Willamette Riverkeepers, said Oregon's changing economy is also motivating city officials to push for clean water because high-tech industry, which has displaced timber as the biggest employer in Oregon, needs lots of ultra-clean water. Hyundai, for example, chose Eugene in part because of the city's abundant supply of clean water from the McKenzie. "It's a form of enlightened self-interest," Francis said. "The timing is right"

Forest Service officials, meanwhile, can't understand the opposition to federal logging plans, especially when they believe down-stream factors - runoff from city streets, pesticides and private logging practices - have had bigger impacts on water quality.

Two timber harvest projects planned for the McKenzie basin call for live-tree buffers wider than a football field on each side of fish-bearing streams.

"There's a much greater, heightened level of care being applied to the landscape," said Deigh Bates, water quality specialist for the Willamette National Forest.

City officials say much of their reaction is the result of last year's floods, which caused some of the highest sediment levels ever recorded. The turbidity in Salem's water was about 20 times what federal guidelines call for and 500 times the city's limit for tap water. In Eugene, the turbidity was nearly 100 times the maximum standard.

"Our water is pretty clean right now," said Salem's Swaim. "But a lot of people interpret the February `96 flood as a wake-up call, that our water might not be as pure in the future as it is now."

The Willamette River, meanwhile, is less clean than its tributaries downstream from Eugene. The Newberg Pool, just upstream from Portland, has some of the highest levels of deformed squawfish.

Willamette Riverkeeper Francis said Oregon's growing population is

a big part of the problem.

"We have more people flushing their toilets, more people driving

their cars that drip oil everywhere,' more people living right along the

river," he said. "Growth Is a real issue.

But John Miller, a Salem-area nursery owner and member of Kitzhaber's Willamette River Basin Task Force, said there hasn't been a better opportunity to improve the quality of Oregon's water since the McCall era, especially with Kitzhaber and Wyden pushing for action.

He thinks Oregonians will take steps over the next few years to improve logging practices, find ways to limit pesticide runoff, deal with pollutants in stormwater and address development along the Willamette River.

"The timing is right," Miller said. "There are several pressure points that are coming to bear on all of Oregon's river systems. The citizens of Oregon, particularly in the Willamette Valley, are in a mood to do something about the basin. And we have a governor who really cares about Oregon's river systems.

"There's an opportunity here to really do something. This is just a, magical moment for Oregon.