EWEB Board of Commissioners — October 21, 2025

0:04 Evening, welcome to the October 21st EWEB Water Electric Board work session. Topic tonight is second source Willamette Treatment Plant project updates. With that, I will pass it over to staff. >> Thanks. >> Quick question. >> Yeah. >> Um, do you want questions at the end or as we >> Anytime you have them. We're ready to answer. We do have the presentation kind of broken up into blocks. Really loud, sorry. And so, there will be kind of a pause between that you can also ask questions, but please interrupt us. This is a conversation for all of you. >> Sure. No, no, not till we get to alternative

0:49 two. >> Okay. So, good evening, commissioners. I'm Karen Kelly, I'm the Chief Operations Officer here at EWEB. And uh with me presenting tonight is Laura Farthing, our principal engineer and project manager for the Willamette Treatment Plant project. And Claire Ray, our communications specialist. We're really happy to be here tonight to give you an update on this project as it stands today. And uh we'll just dive into it. There. Okay. So, just going over the outline here for tonight. We're going to cover the background and history of EWEB's efforts to develop a second source of water. Review the alternatives that have been evaluated. Outline the scope of work for a new plant. Briefly touch on the

1:35 financial considerations. And summarize the project public outreach and communications to date. We hope this will be an interactive discussion with you. We encourage you to ask questions at any time during the presentation. And our goal is to give you all the information you need to make upcoming decisions around this important community investment. Before we dive in, I do want to uh let you know that the team the project team has scoured all of our historical documents on this project. Um, the details of which are in your board memo. So, we did intend for that to be a comprehensive resource for you, you know, going forward. Summarize everything to date and something that you can refer to as we move ahead in with any questions you might have about

2:20 the project and how we got here. Let's see. So, the following slides are merely a summary of that information and intended to provide a little bit of context for the conversation that we're going to have. Here's a little project history. I shouldn't even say little. It actually is quite a lot. It's a lot to take in. So, we've been working on securing a second source at EWEB for more than six decades. Obviously, uh, the three of us as well as our subject matter experts here haven't been involved in every step of that, but it has been a long, long history and it has ranged in solutions from sharing regional facilities to independent solutions using a variety of different water sources. While the history has had its ups and downs, starts and stops, the bright side here that I see on this slide is that we have

3:06 had a journey and we've been turning over every rock possible to try and figure out what is the solution for the Eugene community and the surrounding metropolitan area. We believe we have turned over every rock and in the process gotten very, very clear about the objectives for the project related to the challenges that we face today. And those challenges have changed over time. We'll talk a bit about that. So, what are those project objectives? As this board knows, EWEB is not seeking a second source for growth or capacity. We are pursuing a second source so that we can sustain our community should an accident or natural disaster contaminate our sole source, the McKenzie River, or our sole water treatment plant at Hayden Bridge.

3:52 To provide uninterrupted access to drinking water in this scenario, EWEB will need a second source that is immediately available. The best way to ensure availability is to operate the second source daily outside of emergencies to ensure equipment is functioning properly and staff are trained on processes and systems. Having a second source will also enable EWEB to complete strategic upgrades at Hayden Bridge, specifically being able to take out equipment and processes, get them offline during periods of low water demand, and make repairs and necessary maintenance on that equipment. In addition, building this water treatment plant will give us an opportunity to protect our critical water rights on the Willamette River, which have over many, many years been at

4:39 risk. So, why is this so important? A second source is an essential safety net to protect public health and maintain economic stability for our community. Given all the vulnerabilities the community faces with a single water source, ensuring a second source has become the industry standard for large cities like Eugene, and it is the single most important step we can take to increase the resiliency of our water system. So, um you all know a little bit about my background, but I had worked for the state for many years as a regulator in assuring public health and in public systems, public drinking water systems. And in that job and in my current job, um there's a few things that can keep you up at night. So, one of them is the

5:24 fact that we do have this single source of supply. While working for the state, I was part of numerous incidents of investigating and resolving waterborne disease outbreaks, as well as assisting water utilities with their single sources of drinking water um when they were disrupted, when they ran dry, um thinking about contamination, equipment failures, major leaks, and drought. Um the impacts were severe and at times long, long-lasting. One of the stories that got my attention in 2014 happened to a utility in West Virginia when they had 10,000 gallons of a couple of nasty chemicals leaked into their single water source, the Elk River. This forced officials to declare a do not use order, meaning no domestic use other than flushing toilets. So, no um hand washing, no showering,

6:10 not having any skin contact because of the the potential for those chemicals to get into the skin. In total, that spill affected 300,000 people, about 369 of which went to the hospital with health effects, and the order lasted 5 days, but people's trust in that water was gone for months and even years. And we don't have to look far for water crisis examples. In 2018, the city of Salem had their do not use order for cyanotoxins in the water from harmful algal blooms in their uh primary water source, which was, I think, the Detroit Reservoir. Their treatment plant could not handle the treatment of that, inadequately remove it. Their backup wells did not have enough water to supply the needs of the city. The order lasted over a month and had a huge impact to residents and the local economy and resulted in the

6:56 governor declaring a state of emergency. In 2021, a major storm left the treatment plant in Jackson, Mississippi without water for over a month. And um that just this last fall, we also had an example of the city of Asheville, North Carolina that experienced a hurricane that totally devastated their water system, leaving residents without usable tap water for nearly 2 months. So, if you can imagine 53 days uh without access to drinkable water in your home. Not to mention the impact on their economy. And then we've had our own close calls. So, there's a photo on this slide of a truck crash on the McKenzie that happened just last month. The vehicle nearly rolled into the river, which could have caused a fuel leak we would be unable to treat. We do have uh mitigations in in place,

7:43 of course. We just had our spill drill where our um you know variety of folks came out to help um practice responding to spills, but the fact remains this could still impact our sole source of water. And there've been other several close calls at Hayden Bridge. One was upgrading to uh an onsite sodium hypochlorite facility to eliminate our dependence on chlorine for disinfection, which was one of the best things I thought when I got here that we had um you know not we I wasn't here at the time, but the the board and the engineers and the operation staff had made this decision to to convert. And while I was here, we experienced a shortage of chlorine. And we were asked to help other utilities. Could we supply them with chlorine because chlorine wasn't coming? And that was pretty

8:28 pretty uh serious um in terms of public health impact. So, we were grateful not to be part of that group because that investment that was made. And in winter of 2024, we were hit with a devastating ice storm that took out the three sources of above ground power to Hayden Bridge. We installed backup generator at the same time that we transitioned off the gas chlorine. And that's what carried us through that storm with no major disruption to water service. Again, that was a decision that the board and that supported for engineers and operations to install that generator. And at that time, we were also asked for assistance from a neighboring utility, which we were unable to provide sadly because we only had one uh intake running at the time.

9:13 But had we had the second source of water through our intake system, we probably could have supplied that necessary water to our neighboring utility. So, the same engineering team and operations teams that had the foresight for these investments at Hayden Bridge are saying now is the time to establish a second source of water because it eliminates many of the risks that we face today. So, what we are looking at in terms of characteristics of an ideal source and to defend against the kind of disasters that our peers have faced, we need to meet several requirements. One is that to have a separate water source aside from the McKenzie River. To make sure that our source water quality is similar to the McKenzie River so that when we're blending water out in

9:58 the distribution system, we don't cause more problems than we're solving. We need something that's seismically resilient, can withstand the earthquakes that we're expected to face. Have adequate capacity, meet the needs, so not just life safety. We have some life safety needs met through our emergency well system. But in order to keep our economy moving, keep schools in session, keep keep the workforce moving, we need adequate capacity. We need to be able to control the water supply, water quality, and delivery in order to make sure that that's there to meet our needs when and when we need it. Property ownership is a key piece to this as well for the second source. Make sure that we can build what we need to where we need to.

10:43 And that it's readily constructible. And the last thing is that we would we're looking for forward to being able to develop and protect our our water rights on the Willamette. That's also a key piece to this again. Every legislative session there are bills presented that put our water rights at risk if we do not put those rights to beneficial use and certificate them in the near future. With that, I'm going to move over to Laura Farthing. >> Hi, I'm Laura Farthing. I'm a principal engineer here at EWEB and I'm the project manager for this project. I'm going to go over the alternatives. We did a pretty comprehensive summary in our memo, so I'm going to cover this at

11:28 a high level, but please ask questions as we're talking. If you want to go over more details. Um I think I'll start with the groundwater. So, we do have groundwater wells. We have a permit to use them. They have a capacity of about 12 million gallons a day. They have issues that they can impact uh other water rights, other users of water rights. Um particularly SUB and Rainbow Water Districts. So, those to develop those well fields, we would have to have agreements in place that allow us to impact their wells. There's also some water quality issues. We tested the wells that we have now um just recently a few weeks ago and we did find that there are some contaminants that while they're below the reporting limit, would be of concern if we were to develop them. So, it would likely

12:14 require advanced treatment. And then, as Karen mentioned with the similar source, groundwater is a very different source quality than surface water. So, we would have to have some sort of blending facility to put that into our distribution system. We also in the past and even recently have been talking about options that we could do do using property that we have out by Hayden Bridge. This would involve building a redundant intake and treatment plant. Um this of course has the big issue that it is not a redundant source to the McKenzie. It would give us the treatment redundancy and our intake redundancy, but we would still be reliable on the same river source. Uh we have gone through multiple regional solutions over the decades. Um from the '60s up until about the 2000s, they were really capacity driven. So,

13:01 people were always going to continuously use more and more water. So, these were very regional solutions that involved Lane County, City of Eugene, City of Springfield, SUB, and EWEB in order to maximize what we have for infrastructure and to the limited resources that we have for the community. But, around that time demand started to drop and our demands have really leveled off. And so, now these projects are very resilient our project is very resiliency and redundancy driven and not so much capacity driven. But in the past, there just hasn't been um a way for us to meet a shared common goal. And then we have the Willamette River. That option is really the one that hits pretty much every single option that we have at buildout. It allows us to take

13:47 Hayden Bridge offline strategically during low demand periods so that we can continue doing work up there. It's a redundant source to the McKenzie. It has similar water quality. It can be seismically resilient and it'll have a robust treatment capacity. And is readily constructible. So, we just wanted to look at the water quality. Um just going over this for a high from a high-level. The water quality is very similar for the Willamette River and the McKenzie River. We are lucky that we have two really good sources in our community. There are some differences though. The Willamette River will have some higher organic loads at different times of the year which will could potentially cause taste and odor problems. Um and there's some other differences, but those are all things that are easily

14:33 treated for and something that will further refine during the pre-design process. So, really the scope of the Willamette treatment plant we're looking at is three projects under one umbrella. So, right now we're looking at building an intake that's sized for 30 million gallons a day. That's the maximum uh water rights that we anticipate we'll have. The reason why being permitting's very challenging. So, we have already submitted our environmental permits. We permitted to the maximum use that we could have. And that just sets us up in the future so that if we do expand our capacity, we don't have to go back through the environmental permitting process. It includes a new treatment plant. And then it also will include a new

15:19 transmission main that runs through Glenwood and connects in at Knickerbocker Bridge. This allows us to bring water into our new base level storage system without a river crossing and connects directly into the transmission system in Eugene. So, for the treatment plant, there's been a variety of capacities that have been analysis analyzed throughout history of EWEB. And we've looked at treatment plants from 10 million gallons a day all the way up to 30 million gallons a day. So, the current plan with the pre- preliminary design report that was completed in 2017 has us building a plant at 10 million gallons a day. So, this really result is our life safety minimum indoor use only for residential

16:04 customers. So, it means that there would be mandatory curtailment during all periods of the year if we have to use that as our sole source, and that likely most businesses, industries, and institutions would be closed. That would actually be very hard to regulate. Uh this option also does not allow us to take Hayden Bridge offline for maintenance. We do have water rights currently on the McKenzie Willamette River of about 20 million gallons a day. This does provide us with minimum residential business and industry uses, and it allows us to take Hayden Bridge strategically offline during various periods of the year so that we could set ourselves up to do more improvement projects. But, it would result in having to do some curtailment throughout the year

16:49 depending on what time of the year we had to rely on this source. And then at 30 million gallons a day, we're currently looking to purchase stored water from the dams or looking at other water right options to get us up to that amount of use. This is our average day demand that we're projecting right now at build-out. So, once the entire urban growth boundary is built out. And this would allow us to take Hayden Bridge offline and to be able to do maintenance and improvement projects during the lower demand periods. It also is a more realistic curtailment goal of what we could accomplish. So, just recently Medford had an outage at their water treatment plant. They lost power and they had a conductor fail in between their standby generator and their automatic transfer switch.

17:34 And it happened at 6:00 in the morning during a hot, dry day in September. Which is about the worst time you can have it happen because everybody's already irrigating, so your reservoir levels have already dropped for the day. So, they issued a mandatory curtailment. They lost power at 6:00. They had the notice went out before 7:00 that there had to be mandatory curtailment. And after a 24-hour period, they were only able to reduce their demands by 30%. So, while curtailment is something that is very important, that is kind of a real-world example that it does have some limitations. This shows the annual cycle of what our demands look like. The higher demands are obviously in the hotter, drier times of the year. And then the low demands

18:19 are during the winter uses. So, really when indoor outdoor uses are no longer being used. This graph just shows where that 10 mgd, about 20 mgd, and 30 mgd line up with our demands so that you can visually see what you're getting. So, really after looking at all of these graphs, we think that it's important to re-evaluate the assumptions that we had from the original preliminary design report from 2017. It has been almost a decade. Our demands have leveled off, but we have seen those lower wintertime demands inching up slightly. So, we would are looking at evaluating a 10, about 20, and 30 mgd plant with a preliminary design so that we can look at costs and rate of return that we

19:05 would get from that investment. Springs us to, you know, that brings up a point where, you know, this is a big project and controlling costs is a very important aspect of it. And so, we as a project team, we believe in actively managing our projects and setting clear expectations at the beginning. It's one of the main tools that we use of outlining what exactly do we need, what are nice to haves, what how do we evaluate every option. So, in this scenario we're looking at and we already have our consultant working on it, updating the baseline cost estimate that we brought to you this spring so that we can get some newer numbers. They've worked on quite a few water treatment plant projects that are currently have gone out to bid or are in

19:50 the bidding process so we'll be able to pull on that experience. And then really at every option and decision we have is taking it back to what that baseline is and what we got for it and looking at the overall cost. So, when anything is going to increase the overall cost of the project, we will look at what that cost is, the rate of return and the financial impacts to the utility so we can make informed decisions of whether or not it's needed and how we will control those. >> So, speaking of that, um the numbers that I'm going to cover in the next two slides are preliminary and will likely change once we have the 30% design complete. You can expect a more in-depth conversation about the

20:36 financial impacts of this project come June when we present the key points of the design to you. So, investing in the second source of drinking water for our community is a big decision that we don't take lightly. This slide is intended to give you a preliminary idea of what the impact of an investment of this kind would have on our rates. The numbers shown here will change as the design progresses. Like I mentioned earlier, we'll be back in June with more information. But for now, with an investment of a $160 million, we are looking at a 10-year cumulative rate increase of 37.2% which equates to $16 more per month at the end of that 10-year period for the average single-family residence.

21:22 Projected increases already show rates moving from $44 to 68 at the end of the 10-year period all on their own, not with the second source. So, when you add that second source in again it at the end of the 10-year period, that's another $16. So, we move from today of $44 to a total of $84. The investment would stress our debt service coverage, but it is still within our current target, which is two to two and a half times. Again, we will know more once we have that 30% design and can have some time to look into options to smooth these rates at point time. In addition, we will be looking for any and all grant opportunities to assist us

22:08 in reducing these projected rate increases, as well as any other funding options that may exist such as low-interest loans like the Water Infrastructure Investment Act and other opportunities possibly involving the newly proposed Water Resource and Development Bill and the recent federal prioritization of water and grid resilience projects. So, we we we've had some um, you know, downtime, I guess, on the the federal grants here recently, but it's starting to look like it may pick up. And when and if it does, we'll be ready to jump on those opportunities. Um, you can also see in this slide that we have added quite a few new comparators that show all but two other water systems beside EWEB, which are Grants Pass and Hillsboro, have already

22:53 constructed and or have obtained second water sources or even in some cases more than two water sources. Several of these have recently constructed or are in the process of constructing additional sources and you see we're second from the bottom now and you can see for yourself where we may be at that $84 at the end of the 10-year period. What that doesn't show is the rest of our comparators rates when they also meet at the end of the 10-year period. We expect it to look fairly similar and we'll be in a similar position. And with that I'm going to pass back to Laura so she can talk to you about the fact that while we're looking at a really big investment here, we're we're

23:38 also not able to defer that entire cost should we decide to cancel or stop the project. So go ahead Laura. >> Thanks. So yes, we are the second source was going to provide us will provide us with some added redundancy and resiliency and that allows us to complete our base level storage program, one of which was to decommission the Santa Clara Reservoir. Santa Clara Reservoir provides an operational tool that's necessary to make the reservoirs balance and manage pressures in the system right now. That functionality was going to be replaced with the second source having a connection right into the South Hills and a pump station and storage located there instead. That project that site is

24:23 located on lipophilic soils that would need to be treated to build there so it exponentially increases the cost compared to our other base level storage sites which are all on solid rock. So we're looking at about approximately $80 that will take to replace that facility and the pumping station that's located there. We also in our master plan, we set out goals of how we laid out our base level storage program and knowing that the second source was coming online, we were able to make an assumption of having 75% of our maximum day demand as emergency storage knowing that we could make that up with the second source. Without that, it's more of an industry standard to have between 1% 100% of your maximum day and 125% to cover that. So, we would need to add

25:09 some base level storage at various sites across town. And then for Hayden Bridge, there are some facilities that we can't currently take off line and one of those is our finished water storage. So, we know for sure that we will need to look at that facility uh and make sure that it is in good shape. We haven't been able to take it off line since it was built in 2005. And we know that to do that, we need to build some additional pumping capacity and a bypass around the facility. So, we estimate that'll be about 5 to 10 million dollars. However, that does not include the cost of what it would take to actually do the improvements at Hayden Bridge. That's just one example of one project we would need to do to be able to continue using that facility. And then we have our Knickerbocker Bridge project. Right now,

25:56 that is one of our more critical river crossings. It's 42-in It brings water right into College Hill and our newest 40th tanks. Uh the bridge is older and is does not meet seismic code. So, we're currently working on a project to determine what we do to replace that water line. We have deferred that out for the second source. However, it'll become more critical without that river that new transmission line coming right into the system. So, in total Yeah. >> Just to be clear, these are things that we're going to do anyway. Right? >> If If we do them, these are going to be done if we don't build the second source or some of them will be done either way.

26:41 >> Knickerbocker Bridge will be done either way. Santa Clara, its functionality could likely be replaced at um the second source is what we're looking at now. So, that would go off the list. And then building additional base level storage would not be needed needed other than the program that we already have. So, we would continue down that path of building the 60 million gallons of new storage. This is in addition to that just to add up just to give us some extra added redundancy of our emergency storage. But, yes, you are correct. The bypass around the finished water reservoir, eventually that will happen. It becomes a very different project if we can take it offline. We can do all of the inspections if we can have it offline for a period of time, take our time with it, and then Knickerbocker has been

27:26 deferred, but would have to move up in the plan. >> Oh, I was just going to say, so if we do Hayden Bridge or if we do the secondary treatment plant on the Willamette, then we take Santa Clara offline. Um in the event in event, you know, a catastrophic sort of earthquake event, you know, assuming all of our underground, no matter where our storage and other is, I mean, it's it's going to be kind of demolished. So, um having distributed sources on this side of the river is maybe not as helpful anyway. Is that true? >> It is helpful. However, the Santa Clara area does have a connection into the It's directly connected to the Hawkins

28:12 reservoir without a river crossing. And so, it would, you know, even though we're going to decommission it as it is today, we are still evaluating if we want less storage there just for that reason. But, it's below our hydraulic grade line, which means it has to be pumped. So, it's lower than the 607 by quite a bit. So, it has to be pumped out in order to get the water out of it. So, from an emergency standpoint, it takes manual intervention from our treatment plant operators. So, you have to know, you know, if there's a large fire, the water doesn't just flow out of the tank. You actually have to have someone the pump station has to be working. You have to have someone who can actually start it. So, it allows us to really look at that site in a different way. Yeah. >> It just seems like there's so much water

28:57 kind of in this area and and you know, all of them would be out over on the other side of the the river um in terms of the treatment plants. Um but then in terms of the storage, obviously it's mostly in the South Hills and then kind of nothing in the north region. So, I was just curious about how that I didn't realize Santa Clara was going to be completely off. >> Yeah. >> know how I missed that. I I I shouldn't have. >> Well, and we're still it's part of the master plan of what's ultimately going to happen at that site, but right now it's planned to be decommissioned in its current state with its current functionality. So, maybe a better way to say it. >> And we would have nothing out there. >> Nothing out there except it does the I'm trying to It's hard to do when you're sitting in a chair. >> Sure. >> Um

29:42 So, it has a pipeline that's connected in the Hawkins that goes right to the Santa Clara area. So, there is no river crossing which does eliminate eliminate one of its vulnerabilities. >> Mhm. >> Uh the area that we've also been looking at is the northeast part of town cuz that's kind of an island. >> Yeah, it's also >> Yep. >> Yeah. >> Yep. >> Um okay, that's >> So, that's kind of more to come. It just is in its current 20 million gallon state. But the pump station is will change. And how it changes is dependent on whether or not we have that second source. >> And we I mean it sounds like either way we need to remove Santa Clara. >> Yes. >> Because you have to pump it out and it's So, that that that one replacing Santa

30:28 Clara is the one that we would change the plan on. >> Right. It The current Yes. The current Santa Clara will need to be removed. It is at the end of its useful life and it is an earthen dam, so it's got some structural issues. >> Okay, thanks. >> Right. >> Yeah, I was curious just when you think about some of the numbers that Karen you talked about earlier, there was 40 something percent rate of impact over 10 years not including second source. Given that some of these may or may not have been in the the 2015 comprehensive plan. Did that include does that 40% include any of this? Is this all incremental? How does How do you reconcile some of

31:13 those numbers? >> It does I might have to phone a friend on this one, but it does include some of our projects like the finishing the base level storage. It does not include anything about building additional storage without the second source and it did include the second source as part of it. Some of these are emerging and so we've been working through with finance and then to identify them and we're currently updating our water system master plan and we'll work those into the long-term plan as we move through that process. >> So if you if you think about the previous chart then where it had um a 40 something percent and then it had 37% for a second source on the second treatment plant on the Willamette. If that 37% went away, that 40% would go

32:01 up. >> Correct. >> That maybe not by exactly 37% but there would be a shift of cost because of incremental work. Not from the second source, is that correct? >> Correct. >> Thanks. >> Yeah, I had that. Yeah. >> So I'll just start on my first topic, water quality. And I know you guys have shut me up on that because I was totally against drinking water out of the Willamette. And we did the taste test and I lost so I I quit. But um Creswell is on a DEQ moratorium right now because they've got a a problem polluting the rivers. We've got three dairies up there. We've got four municipal sewage treatment plants to dump in above our intake. We've got the dairies probably don't sometimes I've been contacted by people that talk about

32:46 what happens in the wintertime and high flow. What what happens to those big ponds and uh things like that. We've got all those pressures with all these urban things and you know, short mountains leaching into the Coast Fork and all these risks. What are we going to do to mitigate that? >> Um well, that's really what the preliminary design process is for. We have a long record of water quality um sampling on the river and then we do we are aware of the issues that there are on the Coast Fork. And so it's really aligning our treatment process and making sure that it's robust enough to handle any of those constituents. And there are I mean, the Willamette River the entire Willamette Valley all the way

33:31 up through Portland does use utilize it as a drinking source the high quality drinking source. So these are things that we can treat. We also will have our source water protection program which will likely be expanded to the Willamette which will help. >> Yeah, I would just add so part of the process in expanding the source water protection program is identifying those contaminant sources developing strategies to help mitigate against them and that's you know, the the tax that we would take is is look at what those are. What can we do about them? What partners do we have that are already working on them? And how might we move the dial on on protecting from those particular contaminant sources that we don't have experience with that are on the McKenzie and the backstop then becomes the treatment system.

34:17 >> And then the court order to dump all the reservoirs in. We've got Fall Creek and Dorena and Cottage Grove and Lookout. They all have to be dumped and in fact they just started dumping them the other day and it muddies the river and you saw what it did downstream. They couldn't even clean the water to drink it. Are we worried about that? uh Because all of those reservoirs are above gradient and that and we're not going to I don't think we can win that court battle, but if they continue to make us dump that down to below pool, um what's going to happen there about our treatment? Are we going to be able to treat it? >> Uh well, I would say the plan would be, if we have two sources, we can work between the two and we would have a better opportunity of allowing everything that may be coming down from there to pass us by without pulling it

35:03 into the plant. That said, we'll be looking at what we can do from a treatment perspective to make sure that we're constantly treating at the new plant uh for constituents such as PFOS. Um I'm not sure about mercury. I know that that's a big concern on the dams. If uh maybe Toby could weigh in if um ozone and pack might help us with mercury. Yep. >> Yeah, I just wanted to to add one thing, uh Commissioner Brown. I think that one of the things that the staff would owe the owe the commissioners as far as forward-looking forecast would be once we determine sort of the characteristics and design criteria for the plant, I think we also have to forecast out uh what the investments would need to be in the watershed uh

35:49 protection arena. And so I think that's an ongoing operating cost that needs to be included in the equation. And so I think probably by the spring when we come back with a lot more details, that would be an area that I think commissioners should ask about. >> Yeah, thank you. Um I got two questions. Um Laura, I wanted to confirm when we were talking the numbers. Um and I just I heard you say something and I just want to confirm what you said. Uh so, on that slide that has the two different outlined including the second source increase, I think it's two backwards out of that. Um The top line is the expected revenue requirements that are happening

36:34 regardless and then the second line second source increase is exclusively if we build the second source. What I heard you say was that there was some water treatment second source in the first line. Is that That's untrue. I just wanted to make sure that Okay. So, if we don't build second source, there is nothing Okay. Thank you. >> That first line has nothing for second sources. Oop. >> Okay. >> But my my question earlier Commissioner was that if the 37% goes away >> Mhm. >> the 43% goes up. >> It does increase because of the Yeah, Santa Clara and and Yeah, uh uh bringing Knickerbocker up on the priority list. Totally got it. I just wanted to make sure uh The second thing and is Is there a

37:19 scenario in which both rivers can be compromised before they reached the water treatment centers at either. I also am asking that question knowing that I think that would mean that the city of Springfield is utterly destroyed. So, I'm I know that we're in kind of high in the pie territory, but I just wanted to ask that question. >> I don't want to live through that scenario, but yes, that is always a possibility. It's one of the reasons why we chose our the treatment plant site that we chose. It checks off a lot of the boxes that make you resilient to those sorts of things. So, ideally we would be able to continue to treat through those scenarios, but um you know, it's above the flood plane. It is on solid rock.

38:05 >> Great. That was my also follow-up is why there. So, thank Yes, I I appreciate that. >> Commissioner, there is there are scenarios though if you think about a major earthquake where it's it isn't necessarily our infrastructure, but there could be the upstream dams are are are breached or or destroyed. I mean there there are scenarios where uh pretty much all surface water sources um could be compromised. I mean that's that's a day that I hope is beyond 6 months from now uh for me personally but um I just I I just think that it's uh you can't ignore all of the worst-case scenarios. It's the things that we try to think about um unfortunately. Um but yeah, there could be an example of that.

38:50 >> Absolutely. Yeah, I wanted to make sure that this is also part of the thought process but understanding that even in an emergency scenario, the majority of the reasons is that if one water treatment plant were to go down due to contaminants, that the other could step in. Uh so I just wanted to confirm that and have that said out loud. >> It is actually an interesting point because the way that we design these facilities as engineering as engineers are changing it's changing. So all the things that we used to design for that you know, were someday way out in the future, we're not sure. I didn't want to live through those scenarios either have now happened. So really what you look for and how you size and design these facilities has become a much different game with climate change and these more

39:35 common disasters. >> Yeah, one just one more comment Commissioner. Um we we are talking about this issue as a sole source issue but when we really think about how the system is configured, it's sole source, it's sole treatment, it's sole transmission and it's sole supply chain. So that's the situation we're in. We have a single transmission corridor between um the McKenzie and town and so we talked about supply chain earlier. So it's we're talking about this in the context of the source but there's really um a single vulnerability path here um that we're trying to mitigate. So it's not just treatment, it's also to Commissioner Brown's point,

40:21 um the the issues that can happen within watersheds and other things. So. >> Yeah, I put myself in the queue. Um couple couple things that I'd like to see when we start getting to the 30% design is um the scalability of 10 20 30. Um you know, can we build it to can we build it to 20 with the capacity to add on in in the future if we see that's needed. That would be something that I'll be interested in. And this slide here you say $16 per month average. Is that at the base rate? Or is that is that at the rate that I'm going to pay when I go and put my sprinkler on? Is that cuz it's

41:07 exponential when I put my sprinklers on? It goes to the higher usage rate. Are we keeping that $16 at the base rate or will it go up exponentially as well? Because that's the question that I need to know cuz if if my bill at base rate is 80 $86 but then the exponential thing kicks in when I water and my bill is now is $200, it's going to be >> $400. >> So, most of our comparisons, Commissioner Brosky, are at the the average 9,000 um 9,000 gallons a month. So, it's it's kind of a base residential rate. That's where they see the the comparators at

41:53 the bottom. The typical residence using 9,000 roughly a month. I think that's the right number that we use. And so, it would be based on that. Now, you think about that though, there's more if you think about $16 in 10 years just basic inflation, that's only $11 in today's in value if you escalated if you escalated that. So there's it's $16 but on an average of 44 today. >> So >> So it does >> So what I'm saying is what I'm saying is what I'm saying is when I get my the water bill in August that's $250 that's going to go up 80%

42:40 So that's going to go up from $250 to $400. It's not going up $16. >> Yeah, I think well every every situation would be different. The $16 is the average residential >> So I know so what I'm saying is is will $16 per household make our debt service? Or is it 250 going from $250 to $400 making my debt service? >> It's an average it it's an increase in the revenue requirement of that 37% cumulative. So how that falls out in the cost of service and where we'll see the

43:27 impacts will be driven by how that plant is constructed, how we use it. For example, base level storage replacement is going to show up in that more in that base. That is a more sophisticated analysis than we can do with the information that we have today. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. Sonia. >> comments not related to what I was originally going to ask but um So it would be a base fee or a rate per usage fee. >> It gets incorporated in the rates um, but how those rates impact our customers, uh, depends on so people who live at

44:14 elevation bear more of the cost for elevation. Uh, there are different components of that bill. >> So it will impact them customers. I would want to make sure that we because I think water, unlike power, people who have the means and capability use a lot more because they have more land, they irrigate more, they you know, whatever, but if you're, you know, on a fixed income and living in apartment, your usage is probably a lot lower than 9,000 per month even. So I I would, I mean, I'm supportive of it, but I also want to make sure that we're not, again, we're always looking at making sure that we don't impact the people who are least capable of And I >> And I would fully expect that someone who lived in an apartment and used less

45:00 than the 9K gallons would not see a $16 increase. >> And and I think Commissioner Carlson, I think it's it's probably something that that we would want to look at in a little bit of a further analysis, which is really the rate design question around water. Um, uh, one of the differences right now between water and electric is we got rid rid of the tiered structure on electric for a a particular reason associated with electrification. We kept the tiers on water specifically for the reason that you mentioned, which is the lowest tier is your basic subsistence level. And so, um, then after that it was and there were there were some decisions and choices around how that revenue requirement was going to be recovered in

45:45 rate design. I think that's probably part of the discussion going forward given the significant amounts here, how we would want to approach it. >> Um, one slide back, please. Or I guess another one, sorry. Uh, the one where it compares all of the different options. Third, yes. Okay, so this is years to construction actually 1 year away? How Talk to me a little bit about that. >> We're assuming Well, construction mean a lot of things. We're assuming that our permits environmental permits are going to be issued at the end of October. The state one will the federal permit from the Army Corps will be issued likely in February to March

46:30 and we're anticipating land use approvals in February or March as well. And then we're going to complete preliminary design and part of that is we're looking at some early uh bid packages that allow us to do grading and prep the site ahead of time. So that's within that 1-year time frame we would be ready to go. >> Okay, and then how long would it take to actually build the the plant? >> Probably around 3 to 5 years. >> Okay. And so when we jump ahead to the like the two dates, I think it's 2027 and 2029 out the the big bumps. Those are Those are when we have What Why are there two different jumps there?

47:15 Uh sorry to go back again. >> No, that's okay. Those are the times >> Here. 2030. >> Those are the times uh based on our best estimate of scheduling that we would need to borrow money. So we would need to borrow money uh and see a significant increase in debt service coverage for 2027 and then again in 2030. >> Oh, I see. Okay, so we would borrow enough to kind of carry us through until we would do maybe another >> We likely wouldn't borrow the entire amount up front because we would have carrying costs. Uh so as we understand what the construction would look like, we would fine-tune that, but we anticipate multiple borrowings. >> Okay, got it.

48:04 I have a question about conservation. So, hearing your question, John, makes me think like people can plant and water and, you know, irrigate um whatever they want for their yards, but one strategy is to plant drought-resistant plants or to um just look at their water usage differently. Um but we're going to have a debt that we have to pay back. So, how does it translate into encouraging like conservation to help people have some agency and some control over their bills versus we do have we'll have this enormous cost that we're going to have to pay back. So, I'm just curious about the tension between those two things.

48:55 >> I think that's a great question that you posed. And uh I know folks that I work with get tired of hearing me say, but I like to sell water. I think that does go back to the conversation about rate structure. And what are you trying to achieve with it, but I'll let Frank talk about that. >> Um Commissioner, um there are when you think about this kind of scenario, a lot of parallels to what we're talking about on the electric side, which is there's there's a little bit of a purity in the rate but then a very specific intention of the of the program side. And so, some of that could be to uh drive behavior, beneficial behavior, um and um um really some intentional choices

49:40 around um are those programs designed for rate relief for certain um segments of the population? Are they targeted toward um uh uh, I'll say limited income or they you know, there's um, there is a tension though, um, that exists between if you're recovering your cost through volumetric methods and you lower your volume, that means your rates go up, um, because now you're recovering that that over a smaller volume. So, there is some tension there. Um, and so, uh, to Commissioner Borowski's, um, question, we'll have to look at some scenarios and and what that means as opposed to, you know, we kind of talk in averages and revenue requirements and some of these things, but the rate design part, I think will be,

50:25 uh, an important aspect that we have to just kind of weigh some of the pros and cons, but it's it will be a similar discussion, uh, to the electric side, which is, um, what does beneficial behavior look like? Who pays? It's kind of a, here's these costs, here's this recovery, who's who's paying for that and and how do the programs, uh, provide certain relief for that? >> Thank you. Um, couple other questions. Uh, the logistics about and we didn't expect the city of Springfield to say no last time, and I think from at least my perspective is the political winds in Springfield are a little more challenging now than they were 10 years ago when they said no. Um, if they say no again on land use, and can this design

51:13 that we're going to adapt it and we as we optioned another site, another 20 acres on the south side of I-5 when we went through this process that that worked last time. Will that site A still work and and can we adapt when we flip this design and this engineering to that other site if or another similar site that would be a substitute if we don't get the land use approval? >> Yes, is the short answer. Um, you know, it's a the way that the treatment plant is cited, it would be some rework in order for us to figure out what the site constraints are and how to lay it out. Um the current preliminary design report for the treatment process that we have is something that could be laid out and that we could determine how to make that work. However, we are uh still pushing

51:59 forward on getting our land use approvals. Um we've met with the city of Springfield. I think that we had a good conversation and we're hoping that we're on the path to approval this time. It would switching to a new site will delay the project and you know, every year is approximately 10 million dollars. So, it would be at least 1 year that it would delay it. >> Okay. And a follow-up to Karen, when you started, you talked about the risks of the Highway 126. Have we ever explored the A asking for the speed limit to be reduced on trucks carrying hazardous materials down 126 and or just banning them? I mean, for uh from that for our political thing to to reduce those risks to our water supply because um I know that's not a very politically

52:45 uh good thing to do, but I mean, I I would turn around and always support either saying that they can't go over 35 miles an hour with hazardous materials or they just can't haul them hazardous materials down the McKenzie Pass along the river. >> Uh not to my knowledge, we have not approached that in the past. Certainly something we can look into. I've also not seen any other utilities uh be successful on something like that, but certainly something we we could look at. >> I mean, if it's a threat >> Yep. >> Why couldn't we mitigate the threat through legislation? So, I just boot for the they could go over 58 and spill into the land. >> Well, then we won't look That's only 10 million gallons a day. It's different. Thank you. >> One more people to take them. >> Is there more of the presentation or are

53:30 we still Okay. Let's Let's continue on with the presentation. >> Good evening. I'm Claire Ray, the communication specialist for this project. I'll add one more angle about project communications. So, before we started our outreach, we took a step back and identified the areas where public input could have the greatest impact on this project. And this is a similar approach that we used for College Hill and East 40th. You might recognize this graphic as well. Um for the Willamette project, the areas of meaningful input are the landscape screening for the new plant intake and um

54:15 the plant treatment facilities. Um and then also the mitigation measures in our environmental permit application. There's also an opportunity to partner with residents and businesses in the project area to minimize the impacts of construction. And then water quality, of course, is a point of universal interest for everyone in this area. So, while those decisions will be made internally, we want to keep people posted every step of the way um as we come up with data. So, our goal is to provide multiple channels for engagement with the team throughout the project. Our outreach efforts for this iteration of the project uh kicked off earlier this year. We held an open house in

55:00 January um for industrial water users, and we also presented about the project to the City Club. And both of those sessions were focused on the project need that Karen covered um and also water quality um just to get information out. We held a separate open house for adjacent neighbors to discuss potential construction impacts and ways to minimize them. And after that open house, we actually visited with some neighbors on Harbor Drive that have a waterfront view, uh waterfront properties, um and can see the site from their homes. So, we talked about some landscape screening uh for the new facilities to get those conversations started. And then a unique aspect of this project

55:45 that's different than the water storage tanks is the federal and state environmental permit permitting requirements. So, as a part of our permit applications, the project team developed mitigation measures to offset the impact of any new infrastructure and then also protect the river both during and after construction. So, the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Oregon Department of State Lands opened our proposed mitigation strategies for public comment earlier this year. So, we didn't coordinate that public comment period ourselves, uh but we did email about a dozen local environmental groups um when each of those public comment periods opened just to make them aware of the opportunity and encourage their

56:31 participation. So, we wanted to get the word out um is that's a good area of input. So, uh looking ahead, we will continue our efforts to get the word out about the project through presentations. We're also gathering letters of support from individuals and organizations and institutions who are passionate about securing a second source of water for Eugene. We've heard from people who feel strongly that this is needed, and so we're trying to give them an avenue to voice our support. We're also looking at the different channels that we're using for communication with different audiences based on their proximity to the project. So,

57:16 um our communications with you right now, um the core team, we really rely on memos and presentations, but as we move into preliminary design, we want to hear your input. If there are other ways you want to stay informed um moving forward. And then for other folks who close to the projects, either through geography or interest, we rely on direct email, hard copy mail, events, and some internal channels, um, to get out information. And as we start to move forward with preliminary design, we want to start increasing the frequency of our updates to those groups. And then for the general public, we have our website, Current Connections, and the media as our primary channels. Moving forward, we want to get fresh

58:02 media coverage on this project, so that we can increase awareness. And if people want to opt in for updates, get in uh, uh, the inner circle, they can do that for updates. So, that's really the overview of what we've done so far. We've tried to be proactive with communications, and I'll hand it back to Laura. where we're at and next steps, um, we have completed a significant amount of work developing this Lamont source. We've, uh, secured our water rights. We've completed environmental assessments for the property, initial geotechnical work. We have done, uh,

58:48 public outreach in the past, which we've kicked off again. We've completed a preliminary design report. We've done our intake preliminary design. We've also gone through a value engineering for our intake design. Um, annexation has been approved, and we're moving forward into the next steps, which are we're waiting for our environmental permit approvals. It's been about about 2-year process. And then the Army Corps permits contingent on the Department of Environmental Quality's 401 certification permitting process. These applications have been submitted. They assume approval in about 180 days, ish. And then we're restarting our preliminary design and moving forward with the code and plan amendments with the city of Springfield.

59:33 So, upcoming we anticipate we'll be done with preliminary design in Q2 of 2026. We'll come back with an update from that. We also are anticipating completing our land use in March of 2026. We'll continue public outreach and we're hoping to start construction, like I said, with some of the smaller uh bid packages in 2026, as well. That brings us to we wanted to have a discussion about, as Claire said, how you would like to see updates through the preliminary design process. There'll be a number of months before we complete that. So, if you'd like to see monthly memos or emails or some other format, um and then talking about the preliminary design review, we'll come back and do a presentation and then that'll be where

1:00:18 you uh have an opportunity to give your go or no-go decision after the preliminary design report. >> Well, I just want to comment on the um the way to receive the information. So, one of your things was the monthly memo and I really like the idea of a monthly memo because it still keeps it in front of us every month. Right now, we might feel like, "Okay, we totally understand where we're at and what's happening." And then 3 months from now, we'll have done the same kind of thing with other issues and sometimes it's hard to track, where were we? So, I think um monthly memos, in my opinion, would be good. And then um

1:01:04 I have a question. It's about the land use permitting with the city of Springfield. Um when did you say that we're hoping to get that done by? >> We're hoping we have to go to a joint planning commission meeting that meets with Lane County and city of Springfield. We're hoping that gets scheduled for their November or December meeting and then the council meeting would be in January or February. >> And how long do we continue down this path before we do our second option? >> I think that after we have the joint council meeting, we would need to regroup and make a plan. >> Okay. Thanks.

1:01:55 >> So, it says direction on here. Then I mean if if it's purely contingent, I mean if For me, you make a a very compelling case. We need to do the secondary source and it needs to be the on the Willamette treatment plant. We already have a lot of, you know, it checks all the boxes, literally, on the map that you outlined. Um but, it does seem like it's very contingent on this decision. So, if you're looking for guidance this evening, um I I personally think we should continue down this path, but yes, like you mentioned, we just need to regroup and and also if there's anything that we need to do to help in between here and there so that there's a positive outcome, um we should, you know, figure that out together as well. Thanks.

1:02:44 >> So, yeah, I I I wholeheartedly support proceeding with 30% design, find out where we are, keep our fingers crossed on land use. I do have a question about um the well fields that we acquired and drilled in chlorination site and everything. What are we going to do with that? Are we going to keep it because we imposed, I think, easements around the wells to where people couldn't build and it's all flat residential land and we have a chlorination site on Cover Road that we're just sitting on. Are we going to just keep that? Uh I mean, if we're not ever going to build that out, I'm just wondering what we're going to do with that. >> I It's hard to give up something that you have that in the future. I think you know, to answer your comment, Mr. Borowski, anything that we do, the ultimate goal is to have a treatment plant with the capacity of 30 million

1:03:30 gallons a day. So, any site layouts, anything that we do would plan for that. But, that still doesn't get us to fully redundant. So, looking forward, you know, if you can project out 50 years to future Laura sitting here, it's about having options in the future as well. >> I I personally would be in favor of just keeping it. I just that I just wanted to make sure I brought that up. So, >> You know, it gives us another tool in the future. You know, right now with such a high-quality source as the Willamette, it isn't quite as appealing. Um, however, I think, you know, when you're looking out and thinking about water rights in the future, be short-sighted just to get rid of it. But, that's my own opinion and I don't make that decision. >> I'm 100% with you. Thank you.

1:04:16 I that that may I've got two questions, but that brought up another one. So, on the well sites right now, we don't have protection zones in place over those now like Springfield does. Yeah, but but if you're going to pull water out of there, you got to you got to put the present protection zones around it. It's my what my understanding would be, right? >> Correct. It would actually be a really challenging site to develop. Um, they're kind of tricky to add back in just from a compliance standpoint, and then we would need to have some sort of protection zone around it. So, I on the table, we pushed it. The years to construction was way out because by the time you get all of those pieces in place, you know, it takes a long time to negotiate those agreements. We also don't have land that we own to develop

1:05:02 it and have advanced treatment. >> Yeah. Okay. Um, you mentioned the outreach on the permitting to the environmental groups. Did we also do outreach to uh some of our other customers that would like, you know, we're we're a wholesale seller of water to Veneta. Did they Did we send it out to them and say, "Hey, did Would you like to give input on this as well?" Or was Are we just looking at environmental? And what type of impact or inputs did we see from those outreaches? Was it "No, you We don't want you to do this, and there's going to be a lot a lot of environmental pushback." Or what what did we see from those

1:05:47 uh >> Yeah, so we sent it both to environmental groups who we thought would be interested in and then also our email list, which we're still building. So, people who had already expressed interest in the project. And uh the Department of State Lands and the US Army Corps was specifically seeking feedback on the environmental mitigation measures. So, it wasn't like a commentary on the project as a whole. >> Okay. >> Um and from my knowledge, we didn't receive um the um McKenzie River Trust reviewed the um strategies and wrote a letter of support for the US Army Corps um based partially on our track record of stewardship on the McKenzie as well. Um but we didn't receive any pushback

1:06:33 from both. >> Good good to know. Um Yeah, this is a um Okay, go ahead. >> I was just going to say, I know that prior to me coming on board, there was a lot of outreach to the community. I remember that there was a lot of business support for the secondary source for the other reasons. I mean, when when a business has to go out and be as we heard during the tour earlier, I mean, $35,000. I mean, having that There was a lot of business support years ago. I don't know that um they're aware that the conversation is still going, but >> Okay, I remember my last question. So, when we did a site tour last year of the intake,

1:07:19 we had done uh environmental impacts on pulling out a certain amount of water. Seems to me that we were told them that we were pulling out 5 million gallons a day, but if we're doing 30 million gallon, are those studies going to be still good cuz it was like how low how low does that And it was half an inch that it was going to bring it down at peak season, but if we're pulling 30 out, are those same studies vi- valuable or are we going to have to redo them? >> All of the studies that we've completed were assuming the 30 million gallons a day. So, they are all still good. And I will say from the communication standpoint, we are currently um we just met with the UOVO, and we are actively reaching out to local businesses and

1:08:05 working through our key accounts group as well, and that we have been hearing that there is support for the project. >> Greg. Greg. >> Just one thing we we've heard historically from important key accounts, especially on the commercial side, is is they understand the the economic impact of of losing the source on one side. The other thing that we we get is um ensure the water quality is the same. And so, the blending studies and some of these other things um they rely on the water that we that the quality of the water and the reliability of the water. And so, those are historically the two things that we've heard is yes, we're supportive, we need to keep our businesses going, but we also want to make sure that you

1:08:51 appreciate the fact that water quality matters to us. And those are those are typically the two things that we hear. >> Because the sources are so similar, we're currently just having them blend in the system. >> So, we'll have the rest of ours. >> Yeah. >> Uh we mentioned support for the the I I I would just want to ask it outright, is there any significant opposition to building a second source on the line? I've chose my word carefully of significant, so I want to I like that particular. >> Not that I personally have encountered.

1:09:39 >> Not that I've encountered any either. Um I I think when you when you really think about um what we see in in the water segment specifically, there's kind of this hierarchy of of needs or maybe even a hierarchy of complaints. Um one of them it people don't care about cost if water quality is dangerous. You know, we saw that in in Flint, Michigan. It's like, I don't care how much it cost, just get the lead out of my water, right? So, there's a there's a water quality, there's a reliability, and then there's a cost. And we will get feedback on the the the cost impacts of this. And I think we just have to prepare ourselves um and understand the reasons that we're doing it. Um that's not specific opposition um per se, but I think it's something that we have to prepare for. This is a

1:10:24 significant investment for the community. Investment to me denotes return. At some point, there will be a return on this investment that we're making, but it is a significant one. >> Uh to follow up, that was a perfect segue into what I was going to mention was I believe when I first started my term, there was a community customer survey that came back, and I think the highest voted thing that customers were looking for was resiliency. And then the second one was addressing cost. And so, just even that on the nose, um I think acknowledges the the key factor here and I agree with Commissioner Carlson, this checks all the boxes I hear what this how important it is to to uh follow through on this particular

1:11:10 project and that the alternatives, while they do exist, are just nowhere near matching the same level um even all together, it seems like even if you were to clump them all together, it would still be very challenging. Um, the one that seems silly to me is build another one on the Mackenzie River. So, that's feels a little uh different, but um it is it is an unbelievably high cost to entry and I I'm I it is such a a cause of concern for me. Um, and uh I mean I I've mentioned this before, but uh uh the majority of folks who live in the city of Regina are renters and a third of the renters are severely rent

1:11:55 burdened paying more than half their income on just rent alone. Um, and so just that significant population will be disproportionately affected by rate increases. So, like the the need for finding alternative ways to to shave off that 15% in 2030, the need to seek grants to help lower the total cost, like that is such a a huge factor to to me and and and uh it is it is I'm the percentages are 43% of what we're currently doing and 37% exclusively for the second source and that is a almost double. I'm so that is just such

1:12:40 a I just want to call it out of what it is of of an a deeply expensive project and also a necessary project. So, yeah, thanks. >> Well, to kind of speak to that, um I also think we don't have really fair numbers because as you were saying, if we don't do the second source, then that 42% or whatever is more than 42%. So, it would be helpful, I think, to have a rough estimate of what that might look like so we can talk more about more realistic costs because I think that people will see that those those two different numbers. So, if we can explain what it would cost without having the second source, I think that

1:13:25 would be helpful. That >> Go ahead. >> That will uh we right now are working on our master plan improvements and we're looking at two separate capital improvement plans and that includes the second source and one that does not include it so that we can get a better idea of what that picture looks like as far as costs are. And right now those schedules are aligned to be able to come back with both that information. >> And just um to address a little bit, Deborah and I were sitting here and this is part of the value of a work session is that we we believe that when we come back in the spring, we have to have at least a rate design plan associated with it. Um and because it is a significant

1:14:10 investment and so um that's something that that we'll be talking about when we start to get into the real numbers and what's the impact over time and who is impacted and what are the programs to support it. So, um it it it is pretty amazing um that the average number um that that we talk about, the $44 and and how that represents um about $5 per thousand gallons and a thousand gallons weighs 8,000 lb and I don't know what anywhere you can get 5,000 or 8 8,000 lb of anything for $5 um delivered. So, um it's pretty it's pretty amazing the basis of which we're starting from.

1:14:55 >> Todd. Just um note for those of you like Tim that'll be here long beyond me. Um you know, the reason Medford's the lowest water is cuz they're a regional water supplier and water's a fixed base commodity. So, and there's not a bedroom community around here that doesn't have a severe water challenge and and we could become I mean, for future boards to think about becoming a regional water supplier like we did to uh to Veneta. I mean, every one of the one of the communities, you know, Coburg, Creswell, Cottage Grove, Junction City, every one of them has a water issue. And uh we've got a solution and that would help us financially and it'd help offset some of this rate impact. And so, that's for future boards and not this one, I don't think. But I I would think that would be a wise thing to to

1:15:41 at least explore that because there was been pushback against it before. We got sued when we did Veneta, but we won. But I still think that now maybe it makes a lot more sense because it's a commodity that's just nobody else has. So, and we do. So, um I would hope that we could that this this organization can consider that in the future. >> So, something that would be helpful to me is um the positive impacts that will this will have on the city of Springfield. Um because we're going through That's That's the the land use question, right? Is what If I'm sitting in Springfield as a planning commissioner or as a city councilor,

1:16:26 why should I Why do I change my master plan for Glenwood that we spent a ton of time putting together because Eugene needs water and wants to change their their usage of that piece of property. If I have answers when I'm sitting in a in another meeting next to a Springfield City Council like what I will be on third Thursday. I need to have the answers of how this is going to benefit Springfield as well as the whole regional community so that we can get the what is it? Four votes that you need on Springfield? Five?

1:17:13 But but you know, that's the question that they'll ask me is you know, why why should I throw away this plan so that you guys can come in here and build it in in my jewel of of area of that I'm looking for redevelopment. So if we can get some of those things, I mean, inner inner dependencies, those types of things, the the things that will enhance not only Glenwood, but Springfield residents as a whole, that would be helpful because I think it there are benefits beyond just for the city of Eugene and our customers. So that would be helpful for me.

1:17:58 >> There definitely are some benefits and we have been asked by the city to provide those as well and we're working on that. Um but one of the things I I thought was worth mentioning is, you know, their their plan is will not be thrown out the window with our presence. You know, we'll be enhancing the area. So we plan to make that that case. But the other thing that is a a good news story for us also that I don't think we've talked about tonight is that our water rights are such that the water that we take out of the Willamette, we will leave in the McKenzie and there are a host of benefits to habitat in leaving that colder water in the McKenzie as we withdraw from the Willamette. So I think that's another good news story that we can share. >> Just one last question. We we heard how

1:18:43 much fun the railroad is to work with. Did we get a permit to cross the rail line with the waterline yet? >> We do not have the permit yet, but it is identified as something that we need to work on. >> Do we anticipate a problem there because I've I know UP and the railroads are not easy to work with. And I'm talking about a 2026 construction. Have we Where are we in that process of getting that permission to run our waterline underneath that and that's a main line. And just wondering where we are because that could Just just curious. >> Right. You know, the 2026 start date for construction isn't the whole treatment plant. So, that gives us time to phase and sequence the project. Um it

1:19:28 is something that we are going to be actively working towards. Um it is part of the scope of work to get help with our permitting from our design consultant that we just got under contract. So, that'll be one of the first things that we start looking at. Um and then we have some flexibility of when we time those facilities to be constructed. >> I don't know if you have the city how long it took them to get the underpass research park. >> Well, I'm we're still waiting on quiet zones that have been funded 10 years ago. Because Yes. >> Yeah, um to yes and Commissioner Borowski. Um I think uh information about how uh this project would benefit Springfield. And I think also benefit environmental protections

1:20:14 or environmental efforts as well. I think would be extremely helpful. Uh I think would also help the community have a better not understanding absorption. Uh acceptance, I guess. No, but yeah. I think just a yes and with that is Thank you. >> And I'll just add we did publish a lot of the information on our website about the environmental mitigation measures and so all of that is online and things may shift a bit and we'll keep that updated. So, yeah. >> Okay, are there questions or comments? Do you guys think you got what you needed from us in this meeting to move to the next level?

1:21:00 >> I sure did and I would just encourage each of you that as questions come up, please reach out to the project team. We're here to answer your questions, get you ready for this go no go decision in Q2. So, let us know how we can help. >> So, lastly I think I learned this from from Tim. Are there any questions of us that you would like to ask us that didn't get that didn't get addressed? That was a That's a good point. >> That is a a good question and I I guess I I just want to respond to one more that Commissioner Morris had mentioned, you know, is is there any opposition? And we have really good relationships with our other water utilities throughout the state and so we have been talking to the

1:21:45 folks who are, you know, in process right now going through this. They have had some serious environmental pushback on their withdrawals and I guess I just want to leave you with that, you know, our situation is different. We have a better story to tell with the with the change in temperature that we'll be providing through this project, but we are paying really close attention to that and that's why I kudos to our communications team cuz they're having us be very proactive in reaching out to folks who who may have some opposition and make sure that we are answering their questions. >> So, when I hear you talk about this, something that I feel is I feel like it's an exciting opportunity actually. I look at our history of watershed conservation in the

1:22:31 McKenzie, and I know that there's different challenges on the Willamette, but we have such a strong environmental ethic. I feel like it's such an opportunity for us to do some cleanup along that river, and so I feel like bringing that message to people, like when we're not just wanting to extract from it, but we're really wanting to make it better. I think that's a good message to spread. >> Perfect. All right, with that, if there's no other questions, uh that's a wrap. Thank you. >> Other lives. >> You got a big gavel. >> You did it.