Wastewater commission considers adding new partners

Presenter As Eugene grapples with a housing emergency, two nearby neighbor cities have been unable to help. New housing in Creswell and Junction City is limited until they can improve their wastewater systems. Before the Eugene City Council on Jan. 21, Creswell City Manager Vincent Martorello:

Vincent Martorello (Creswell, city manager) Hello, everyone. We are currently under a mutual agreement order with DEQ that really puts a moratorium on certain development within Creswell. 

The reality for us is we’re faced with really two options moving forward: either the regional connection, which we ask for your support for, or to build a improved plant here in Creswell. The cost difference between those is:

The plant itself initially would be about $70 million. And that’s not including the upgrades that we would need every several years or every five years, to meet certain requirements. 

The regional connection initially was about $43 million. And in conversations with Lane County and just the timing of different finances, we’ve agreed to take on a little bit more expense, about $12 million, bringing the project up to $52 million, so we can make this connection.

And the connection was really designed for our population up to 7,500 (we’re currently at just over 5,800) and the upgrades that would be needed to connect into the system. 

So in working with Lane County and DEQ we’re really all in agreement that the connection to the metro regional system into Springfield and through Eugene is really our best option moving forward long-term. 

And also there is a benefit to the Metro(politan) Wastewater (Management) Commission from expanding their user rate base, allowing them to expand that way a little bit for future revenue as well.

Presenter Lane County Public Works director Dan Hurley:

Dan Hurley (Lane County Public Works, director) And I’ll just add that Creswell is very challenged in running their facility. You know, down in Creswell, it’s a very small water body that they discharge to, the Camas Swale Creek, and wastewater treatment plants are very expensive and difficult to run, especially with increasing environmental regulations. To discharge to a small creek like that for a growing community is very challenging. 

More recently, just in the last couple months, we’ve been approached by Junction City and they’re under a very similar compliance action from DEQ and a moratorium on housing. 

Junction City is in a very similar situation to their discharging to its Flat Creek, I believe, very small water body that connects to the Willamette. And it’s hard to meet those discharge effluent limitations. 

So MWMC commissioned a study through Jacobs Solutions, an engineering firm, to look at capacity at sort of a high level. And—big picture—found that the system has adequate capacity in most places across the system. And if there are upgrades, it’s the intent that the new users to the system would pay for those upgrades. 

The governor’s office is very interested in this regional approach and is trying to pull in potential agencies to help find grant money, loan money to bring this project together. 

You know, Junction City has several hundred housing units that could be opened up, if we can get through a solution for them on this wastewater issue. So there are some regional benefits here to consider.

Presenter Metropolitan Wastewater Management Commission Executive Director Matt Stauder:

Matt Stauder (MWMC, executive director) Matt Stauder, MWMC executive director. We have a couple of studies ongoing right now, but we had Jacobs Engineering (who formerly was CH2M Hill) take a look at our capacity from a 20-year perspective and see what’s available and where do we have excess capacity that we’re not going to use in that planning horizon? 

We see typically 25 to 30 million gallons a day (MGD) on a dry weather basis. And we have wet weather capacity up to 277 MGD. The flows, I think Dan, Creswell is what, billed out at 2.2 MGD? Goshen is on the order of 1-sh (million gallons per day). So it’s 1% to 2% of our wet weather flows and 5% to 6% of our dry weather flows. 

But again, outside of the collection system, which is a separate issue with Springfield, haven’t analyzed it for Junction City and the Eugene local system, but at the MWMC system, the flows themselves are fairly small. And in the 20-year horizon, we don’t see any impacts.

Presenter Eugene City Councilor Mike Clark:

Councilor Mike Clark  Thank you for the presentation, everyone. I want to say that I am generally in favor of a regional approach to this, so moving forward seems like a good idea, but I have a lot of concerns. 

We have, for example, in the city of Eugene, an obligation to the state to build 1,600 new housing units a year for the next 20 years. And I don’t have as clear an understanding as I would like to have about the future demand on our current excess capacity.

Presenter Eugene Planning Director Alissa Hunter:

Alissa Hunter (Eugene, planning director) I’ll just jump in and add, I did take a look at one of these reports, and the part that I did understand is that it’s based on population. So it’s the number that we get from the state that we’re anticipated to grow. Regardless of where that happens, it’s really based on household numbers and estimated jobs based on our projected population growth.

Presenter Councilor Clark:

Councilor Mike Clark Thank you. That helps a little, more detail would be good… 

Just wanted to say real quickly and plant a seed in people’s head to think about later. It was my point of view that we made a mistake 10 years ago in adding zero new land for residential homes to the UGB when we had the opportunity and established our UGB. 

I clearly think that was a mistake. I think one of the things it did was force an increased rate of growth in the outside communities, and we have to then consider the consequence of that. I would just say that there’s a day coming, not too far in the distant future, where we have to look at the potential for impact to our UGB for residential growth of the future. And it’s important to remember these kind of conversations when we get there. That’s all. Thank you.

Presenter Eugene, Springfield, and Lane County consider adding more partners to the wastewater commission, an intergovernmental entity formed in 1977.