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51 °F Forecast | Road Cams Saturday, May 7, 2005 Today's News | Shop Our Valley | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery | Contact Us SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Health Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Real Estate Guide Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley SHOP OUR VALLEY AutoFinder HomeFinder JobFinder Classified Place an ad TOP JOBS EXTRA Ashland News NIE Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People Volunteer Moving here? eSouthernOregon CUSTOMER SERVICE FAQ's Advertise with us Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend May 6, 2005 Since You Asked It would take centuries to drink up Crater Lake My daughter would like to know, in case the city of Medford ran out of water from other sources, how long it would take to drink and use all of the water in Crater Lake. — Beverly F, Medford We should warn you that people can get hurt when journalists attempt math, Beverly. So, stand back. You must also keep in mind the lake is the dazzling jewel of Oregon’s only national park, drawing visitors the world over. Not a drop of that crystal-clear water is ever going to be drained from the lake that will be on the new Oregon quarter to be released next month. But we decided to humor your daughter — and ourselves — by trying to do the math. Given that the lake covers 13,139 acres and is an average 1,148 feet deep, we figure there are 15,083,572 acre-feet of water in the lake. Advertisement True, that doesn’t include fluctuations. Don’t get picky. At the risk of drowning you in numbers, we then multiplied the number of gallons in an acre-foot (325,851.4) with the lake’s acre feet to come up with 4,915,003,053,200.8 gallons. That’s a nice, round 4.9 trillion gallons. Migraine setting in, we then called Larry Rains, manager of the Medford Water Commission, to find out how much water we use. Roughly 23 million gallons a day, he said. That comes to about 8,395,000,000 gallons annually by our headaching calculations, or 8.4 billion. Not including recharge from annual precipitation, the lake could provide the current population in Medford with water for more than 585½ years. We are going to lie down now, thank you very much. Send questions to "Since You Asked," Mail Tribune Newsroom, P.O. Box 1108, Medford, OR 97501; by fax to 541-776-4376; or by e-mail to [email protected] . We’re sorry, but the volume of questions received prevents us from answering all of them. Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback Free Music Downloads Conference Calls - $50/Month Home Security Systems Trunks, Footlocker, Trunk, Footlockers home equity loans helzberg diamonds Distance Education Diamonds Paris Hilton Online Poker Auto Insurance Mesothelioma Slippers Student Loans Tatoo tcg student loan consolidation teleconferencing Website Design & Marketing Memory Foam Mattress w2 forms Tatoos Mortgage Calculator Free Home-Loan Referrals Payday Loans Advertisement s