Scappoose-Vernonia Hwy Spring
Scappoose, Columbia County, Oregon. Spring; Year-round.
Details
- Where
- Scappoose, Columbia County, OR. No street address stated. Directions
- Getting there
- At mile marker 15 on the Scappoose-Vernonia Hwy, on the left heading west, in a two-car turnout on the spring side of the road.
- Access
- A commenter reports a local told him the spring has tested positive for E. coli bacteria multiple times; other comments report murky or yellow water at times and ask for test results.
At mile marker 15 on the Scappoose-Vernonia Highway, on the left side heading west, a black PVC pipe comes out of the hillside and runs water year-round. A turnout about two car lengths long sits on the spring side of the road, and a slip-proof ramp leads from the parked car down to the pipe. Across the highway, on the right, stand two manufactured homes, one tan and one green. Visitors use them as landmarks. One visitor, Dallas, wrote in 2017 that the spring lies about a minute past Walker Road, which splits off to the right, and that the pull-off “can be easy to miss if you’re driving by.” Rachel, the next year, put it about five minutes up the highway from Hwy 30.
The listing for the spring on Find A Spring comes from a man named Michael, who wrote that the neighborhood uses it all the time and that his family had lived near it for 40 years before moving away. “It is the best water in the world!” he wrote. An earlier description placed it only “approximately 5 miles outside of Vernonia,” and in 2016 Patrick Laing asked for a mile marker. The comments that followed supplied one.
In April 2024 Laci found the spring in good order: “Other water pilgrims filling made it easy to find.” The water has not always run the same. On November 6, 2023, Gregory found it murky, with debris. The next day Melody reported it tinged yellow, “tea colored,” and her pH tape read 5.5 to 5.8. She wondered whether runoff from heavy rains had reached it. A December 2023 visitor recommended the Schaffer Road spring instead. In August 2024 Nova, who had been filling here unfiltered since the Troutdale Spring was shut down, wrote that a local man told her this spring had tested positive for E. coli bacteria several times. He said he did not know anyone who had gotten sick. She stopped using it. On November 28, 2025, Charlie found the water yellow again.
Visitors have asked whether the spring has been tested since at least 2021, and again in January 2026. On March 4, 2026, a visitor who had collected the night before wrote: “The water is clean and wonderful.”