12:15pm
Problem at a substation. Problem solved. Power should be humming along normally.
Authorities are saying there has been either a power surge or a power outage in the central area of Newport at around 11:30am Sunday. A fire alarm is going on at Head Start at 253 NE 1st, the Newport Fire Department has switched to back up generators and the signal lights at 101 at 6th and 11th are malfunctioning.
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Keeping the juice flowing
across Alsea Bay
Maggie Rivers photo
Before -left
After – right
Courtesy graphic: Central Lincoln PUD
From Chris Chandler
Central Lincoln PUD
The two wooden structures holding up Central Lincoln’s 69-kilovolt lines across Alsea Bay in Waldport are nearly 50 years old, and those years have not been kind.
“Those two structures have been worrying me for some time, said Central Lincoln’s Chief Engineer, Bruce Lovelin. “They’ve been deteriorating due to rough coastal weather, age, and sea salt. And, if either of them had come down in a storm, we would have had to scramble to keep the lights and heat on in the Waldport area.”
But replacement in water isn’t as simple as just pulling out one, and putting in another. “We were required to get permits from several state and federal agencies due to their concerns for aquatic species, and the application process took nearly three years. The permits require us to be finished by March 15—less than two weeks away. We’ve carefully planned every detail, and are very hopeful we’ll have decent weather,” Lovelin said.
What are currently two three-pole wooden structures will be replaced with two pairs of steel towers that will be only slightly higher than the old ones. “Guy” wires and anchors, and some old pilings will be removed as well. The new steel structures are expected to last 80 years, are designed to stand up to winds of 130 miles per hour, and won’t need guy wires or anchors. “We want customers in the Waldport area to know that at first, the new structures will stand out,” said Lovelin. “But after a few years, thanks to salt air and time, the steel structures will blend in much like the old wooden ones do now.”
With a barge, a crane, four steel towers, installation of tower holders called “caissons,” and wooden structure removal there will be much to see in the Alsea Bay area in March. “This is a great project, and we welcome our customers to watch every step,” Lovelin smiled. “But safety comes first, so we ask that folks please stay back a safe distance. This especially includes boats, canoes, and kayaks. We appreciate everyone respecting our safety boundaries.”
Lincoln City City Hall
Saving citizens $1.2 Million in bond interest
Lincoln City City Manager David Hawker recently announced that he expected the city to save a significant amount of interest through a resale of some of the city’s outstanding municipal bonds. But he said in a news release issued this morning that the savings on this week’s 2005 sewer bond resale, which takes advantage of current low interest rates, the savings were quite substantial; well over a million dollars which Lincoln City taxpayers won’t have to pay.
Hawker praised city Financial Planner Ron Tierney for assembling a re-auction of the bonds which took several months to accomplish. Hawker said Tierney re-packaged the current bonds which were earlier auctioned at an interest rate of 4.53% and put them back on the bond market for re-sale. The $8.9 Million still unpaid were re-sold at a rate of 2.44% – a savings of $1.224 Million. Hawker said “Bonds are paid with sewer bills, property taxes and system development charges. The amount we need from these will be less.”
Toledo City Council
It appears that the Toledo City Council may be backing away, somewhat, from it’s request that the Lincoln County School District pay for part of the costs of upsizing Toledo High School’s water line, to aid in fighting any fire at the facility. The council earlier caught wind that the school district paid for upsizing a similar water line for the new Waldport High School but had not offered funds to upsize the one to Toledo High.
Enter more information.
Toledo Mayor Ralph Grutzmacher said discussions with the school district have revealed that the Waldport Fire Marshal required the water line to Waldport High be made bigger than planned. And that a water pump boost station be added to the project. Net effect: A $350,000 bump up in the price of the new high school. School district officials told Grutzmacher that they had to subtract an equal amount out of the rest of the high school project which is currently being built.
The other part of the discussion centers around whether water system improvements to Toledo High School are solely because of the improvements to the high school. Toledo Public Works Director Adam Denlinger told the city council Tuesday night that water line improvements in the Toledo High School area are related to a Sturdevant Road area water system improvement plan that’s been on the books for a long time, a plan that is still ongoing. The system upgrade will serve more homes yet to be built as well as improve overall water pressure in the area.
So, the council appeared to cool to the idea of trying to get the school district to write the city a check for upsizing the line to the high school, although not absolving the school of some financial obligation in the future – the amount to be determined at a later date.
Fixing what’s wrong “down under”
Lincoln City water crews have fixed about half of the underground water leaks that were contributing to huge losses of water that the city pushes through the pipes but never gets paid for. At this time last year, fully forty percent of city water spewed out in underground leaks according to City Manager David Hawker.
But now, he says, they think they’ve cut that loss in half with two major repairs. But that still leaves 20% of the town’s water supply going to waste.
Hawker says work crews are still tracking more leaks with recently acquired high tech water leak detection equipment that they showed off to the city council. “It was well worth the investment,” explained Hawker. “This equipment is helping us add over 30% to our overall water supply and the only cost was paying for the equipment which is far cheaper than expanding the water treatment plant or water intake systems.
Public Works Director Lila Bradley says if any city, county or private water purveyor can get their leaks down to under 15% of what goes into the pipes, they’re doing pretty well.
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Many residents in the downtown region of Newport have been experiencing cloudy water over the last few hours. This was caused by inadvertent pipe scouring during the operating transition between the old and new water treatment facilities. The cloudiness in the water is caused by suspended manganese that normally lines the walls of the water distribution pipes. A sudden surge in water such as a fire hydrant being turned on will cause the manganese to break away from the pipe walls.
The water is safe to drink but you should wait to do laundry or use a lot of hot water until the manganese settles out. Using hot water causes the manganese to collect in the hot water heater.
The city is actively flushing the lines but the cloudy water issue is so widespread across town that it will likely need to settle in the lines before the water clears up. This may take several hours. The city apologizes for any inconvenience this issue may have caused.
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TIM GROSS, NEWPORT PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR
UTILITY FEE INCREASES AND PLANNED INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS
On August 31, the City of Newport will mail the July water bills.
These bills will include new water and wastewater rates, and a new charge – storm water utility fees. These fees became effective on July 1.
Like many other communities, the City of Newport is faced with water and sewer facilities that were installed between 40 and 70 years ago. Much of it is beyond its useful life and has failed, or is about to fail. The result is significant property damage and costly service outages.
These fee increases have been implemented as part of a program to fix these problems. The rate increases were discussed in a series of public hearings with the City Council, and were approved on June 18 as part of the Fiscal Year 2012/2013 budget.
Some of the city’s most immediate projects will be:
* Big Creek Lift Station and Force Main Replacement: The sanitary sewer lift station located on Ocean View Drive by Agate Beach State Park takes wastewater from all of Newport north and east from this station. During the winter months, the Big Creek Lift Station regularly overflows because of inadequate capacity. This project will increase the size of the force main and pumps within the next two years to prevent future overflows.
* Water Main Replacement and Upsizing on Hwy 101 between NE 61st and NE 71st Streets: This project will increase volume for better fire protection and will replace aging water mains acquired by the city from the old Agate Beach Water System.
* Salmon Run Pump Station Relocation/Replacement: The Salmon Run pump station and water main was put out of service for several days during the winter storms in January of 2012 due to landslides. This project replaces the pump station that was built in the 1980s and moves it outside of the geologically unstable area.
* Yaquina Heights Tank Improvements: This project involves repainting the exterior and relining the interior of the tank, and replacing the safety rails on the top of the tank which have rusted away, making inspection of the tank impossible.
* SE Fogarty to SE John Moore Drive Storm Sewer Improvements: The storm sewer in this area is failing causing repeated sinkholes in the parking lot of the Embarcadero and storm sewer backups into Bay Boulevard.
* Bay Crossing Sewer Forcemain: In the winter of 2011 and again in 2012, the welded steel line that conveys wastewater to the Bayfront and then across the bay to the wastewater treatment facility failed at the welded joints causing wastewater the back up. This project is focused on repairing and or replacing this section of failing forcemain.
* Lower Big Creek Reservoir Drawdown Repair: The purpose of this project is to replace a corrugated metal pipe and gate that draws down the city’s water supply reservoir. This pipe was installed when the dam was originally constructed in the 1950’s and is close to the point of failure.
The rates collected as part of the city’s utility bills pay for these projects as well as operational costs associated with providing clean water, treating wastewater, and conveying stormwater. These projects represent just a few of the necessary improvements identified within the city’s long-term Capital Improvement Plan. These improvements are vitally necessary to keep clean water flowing and to protect public health through proper wastewater conveyance and treatment. Citizens having questions regarding the rate increases or the Capital Improvement Planning process, may contact the Public Works Department at 541.574.3366.
Phone service in Waldport was out for a while this morning after an equipment upgrade didn’t work. Much of the area’s phone service was disrupted for about an hour until they removed the “upgrade” and put the old one back in.
Phone service was restored around 10am this morning.
Newport City Council
After much agonizing and trying to predict the future, then backtracking and trying to predict the voters, then returning to where they were at the start, the Newport City Council Monday night heeded the advice of their public works director and raised Newport water, sewer, stormwater, and utility infrastructure fees effective July 1st. Public Works Director Tim Gross, reminding the council that the city’s water and sewer pipes are 20 to 40 years overdue for replacement, said the city needs to raise enough revenue that would represent a doubling of resident utility bills to put the city’s utilities on a sustainable revenue track…effectively doubling over the next ten years. He said there may be special federal, state or other grants or low interest loan programs that might come along to lessen the strain on ratepayers. But any way you cut it, it must all add up to enough revenue to put the city utilities on a sustainable operations and replacement program.
So again, come July 1st, water rates will rise 15%, sewer 20%, Utility Infrastructure Fee 5% and a first ever stormwater fee will be levied at $6.80 a month.
During the debate, councilor David Allen urged the council to put a rather large general obligation bond to a vote of the people. That was tossed out by the rest of the council, they saying such broad based property tax supported bonds should be reserved mainly for very high cost items like major street construction, water and sewer plants. Councilor Sandra Roumagoux raised the question, “What if the voters turn you down, then what do you do? The work still must be done!”
Public Works Director Tim Gross said as time goes on and the city replaces more and more of its pipes, the city may be able to win various grants or low interest loans that might reduce future rate increases. But again, he emphasized that it must work out to $3 million a year in pipe replacement work; roughly a mile and a half of pipe a year, whether water, sewer or storm drain.
Gross reminded the council that the utility system challenge facing Newport is being played out in just about every American city. Their pipe systems were installed during the post-World War II building boom when huge tracts of homes were built, an interstate freeway system was constructed and the country was the economic envy of the world. Well, those same pipes are still in the ground and they’re rotting away and failing by the day. And each failure costs a lot of money to fix, only to see another part of the lines fail again.
Again, the rates go up July 1st. Gross says he’s going to make sure the city applies for every grant out there to help cushion the impact of future rate increases. But he lamented, “Right now there isn’t much out there due to the prolonged recession.”
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Newport City Councilors will be a most unhappy group of folks Monday night as they consider a dramatic series of rate increases for anyone with a water meter on their residence. Rate increases of 15% for water, 20% for sewer, 5% for operations and maintenance and a first-ever storm water charge of $6.80 a month will be on the table for discussion and action.
The move comes after it was reported by City Public Works Director Tim Gross that the city’s sewer and storm water systems are old and need replacing as well as expanded. The city’s water distribution system is frail and failing, says Gross, and also must be expanded with a new water line along SE 101 from 40th to 50th Streets, an upper Big Creek Lake Syphon, and a major new water tank for Agate Beach. However the Agate Beach Tank and 40th to 50th street boring projects will be funded largely by fund transfers and higher system development fees charged to new building projects. The new tank is currently under design and its construction will begin in the near future. The city’s brand new water treatment plant is nearing completion and will be brought on line also in the near future with higher quality water than ever before.
Gross contends that Newport’s water, sewer and storm drain distribution systems are no different than in cities and county’s around Oregon, if not the country. He said there are water and sewer lines crumbling from one end of town to the other, and they’re fixing them from one end of town to the other. Gross says they’re repairing them with money that should be going to replacing them – not just fixing them only to see them fail somewhere else along the line.
Gross says Newport must begin replacing all this to the tune of $3 million a year. Gross claims the city needs to replace up to a mile and a half of pipe every year for the foreseeable future. He says a 50 to 60 year replacement cycle is about what it works out to. He says that is the life cycle of underground pipes in rainy, high groundwater coastal Oregon.
Gross informed the city council that these stiff rate increases may not have to be the only source of revenue for such an ambitious ongoing project. There could be low interest loans, federal and state grants, or special funding arrangements not yet contemplated, that might eventually kick in. If they do, then rate hikes could be leveled off or even reduced and still get the job done. But he lamented “that’s not happening yet. There’s very little financial help out there.” But he says, something has to be done and done now. Gross says Newport’s utility line problems are getting so bad that he can’t guarantee that the town’s fire hydrants will be able to deliver sufficient water if a bigger-than-average building fire broke out. He also points out that cities and counties can no longer allow aging sewer systems to allow raw sewage to pour into our local bays and rivers and onto our beaches. Gross says fines for that sort of thing are are going to be very high after looming tighter discharge restrictions take effect.
If agreed to by the city council, here’s how the new water, sewer and storm drain rates could look like starting July 1st. For a 3/4″ inch water line to a home it would be $16.45 a month for the first thousand gallons with a $3 surcharge per thousand gallons after that. For those outside the city, the rate would be $31.40 plus $4.95 per thousand gallons after the first thousand. For a 1″ water feed in town, $22.60 for the first thousand gallons, then $3 per thousand after that. For a one 1″ water feed outside the city, it’s $42.75 a month for the first thousand gallons, and $4.95 per thousand gallons after that. For a 2″ water feed for inside the city it would be $56.95 for the first thousand gallons, then $3 per thousand gallons after that. Outside the city for a 2″ line the base rate would be $104.75 for the first thousand gallons and $4.95 for each thousand gallons after that.
On the sewer side, for a single family home the new rate would rise to $18.45 base service, with a charge of $5.30 per thousand gallons. For multi-family buildings and commercial businesses, it would be $18.45 for the basic service and $6.05 per thousand gallons. Those who bring their sewage to a dump station, the rate will be 30-cents a gallon.
On top of all that is a 5% increase in the city’s operations and maintenance fee. So, for a 3/4″ water line it’s $5.95/month. For a 1″ line it’s $11.90/month, for a 2″ line it’s $41.75/month and for a big 5″ water line it’s $381.55/month.
Gross is proposing (after long discussions and a number of public hearings) that a monthly storm water fee of $6.80 per month be levied on any dwelling or business with a water meter. During the last city council meeting the frequently mentioned allegation was made again that small home owners should not be subsidizing the Walmarts of the town that have much bigger paved areas than homeowners do. Gross and the city council responded that a lot size and percent of impervious surfaces is an over-complicated analytical tool for figuring out who pays how much for storm drains. They say that the overwhelming amount of storm water comes from city streets and highways which everyone in town uses whether going to and from work, for the delivery of goods and services to homes and businesses, public transit, bus transportation for school children, recreation or a host of other reasons people drive or ride about town. He said the extra storm water from big box stores with large parking lots is literally a drop in the bucket compared to the public’s road surfaces. That observation will likely be heard yet again Monday night during the council meeting
A number of residents are also expected to testify Monday night that they just don’t have the money, and won’t have the money, for what will soon be, within five years, the doubling (or more) of their water, sewer and storm water bills. During the last council meeting it was discussed that the city might set up a separate fund for those who qualify for assistance from other citizens willing to pay a little extra on their own bills so that low income residents can get a discount.
All this gets underway Monday night at Newport City Hall, beginning at 7pm. That’s the exact time set for the agenda item dealing with the rate increases.
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