Bend Oregon air & water quality (moving to, air quality, vehicle)

[fred598]

We are considering the moving to the Bend Oregon area and would like to know anything about these two things. My wife has asthma that is affected by smoke and vehicle exhaust. We like to raise chickens so would likely be outside of town so would like to know if the well water is good in those areas.

[delta07]

Water quality in Bend is good, although there have been several lakes closed for at least a portion of the summer due to algae blooms. However, the city of Bend watershed seems to be great. Smoke issues are probably a bigger problem. If your wife is sensitive to smoke from fires, Bend or the surrounding area are probably not the place to move. I've been here two summers, and I have say that usually August and September you can count on at least a few weeks of hazy skies. We do have big forest fires here. This summer we had air quality health alerts due to the smoke.

[Bendite]

I agree - the air can get to be pretty funky. Late this summer, we had a couple of really smoky days due to a wildfire southwest of Bend. The forest service also does fairly regular small controlled burns. Pollens from juniper trees are troublesome to some people too. Our water is excellent and we rarely have vehicle emission air problems though I have seen a couple of days where everything settled in on us due to an inversion.