To our residents, property owners, and businesses,
It should be no surprise that we need a new wastewater treatment plant. We can smell it too.
Our current plant was built in 1963, and while we’ve worked to update it over the years, the main underlying technology is outdated and unable to process to the degree that is necessary to meet our discharge requirements…and get rid of the smell. Our staff working at the plant are trying their hardest, while working with seriously outdated technology, to remedy the smell.
We understand that there is concern that the developments are causing this issue. This issue existed prior to the new developments and would have required replacement regardless of the growth. The growth has pushed the timeline up though. Our engineers are monitoring the plant along with Oregon DEQ and will institute a construction moratorium if conditions reach a threshold. The state has stringent requirements for issuing a construction moratorium and we have not yet reached those requirements.
These new developments are paying a share of the cost. Every new development pays what’s called System Development Charges (SDCs) with every building permit issued. These SDCs are put into a fund to be spent on improvements to the systems. The way SDCs are calculated is that we take the cost of improvements and spread it across the users who will be impacting the system. This means that while developers are paying into these costs, residents who have lived here are expected to pay into it too. It’s not only the new residents who will be using the wastewater plant. Residents will pay into this cost with an increase in rates.
On the plus side, because of the growth there are more users to spread the cost across which decreases the individual bill. The original cost estimate for a new plant several years ago was around $26 million, at that time we expected the increase to a household bill to be around $45/month more. Since then, the cost to construct has risen significantly and we’re looking at a construction cost of $42 million, but because of the growth we still expect the rate for a household bill to go up around $40-45/month.
We understand that an increase of $45 a month on your sewer bill will be a hardship for many of our residents. We’ll work on incremental increases but expect to reach around $85-90/month for sewer in 2028.
We’re doing all we can to decrease costs and fundraise for the project. This includes some decisions which may have been unpopular such as locating the new plant between Timber Park and the Public Works shop. This decision alone saved around $8 million. We’ll be value engineering to find cost savings wherever possible. We’re also working hard to get grants for this project.
You can help us with these grants. Community members writing letters of support shows granting agencies that our community is concerned about the impact and supports our application for assistance. On the back of this letter is a draft letter of support for our grant applications. If you feel that you would like to sign this letter you can return this with your signature, or we have an online version you can digitally sign https://www.cityofestacada.org/wastewater-letter-of-support/. We also appreciate any additional letters in your own words.
Thank you,
Elaina Turpin
Assistant City Manager