This article was published on: 03/14/12 12:00 AM
Forest Service says project not likely to have huge impact
By Nick Grube
The U.S. Forest Service seems poised to let the city of Bend
proceed with its controversial $70 million upgrade of the Bridge Creek
water system.
On Tuesday, the federal agency released a 235-page
study that found the project likely won’t have major impacts on Forest
Service lands or the surrounding watershed.
The Forest Service
analyzed the city’s proposal to build a new water intake facility at
Bridge Creek and a 10-mile-long pipeline that would snake through the
agency’s property as well as underneath Skyliners Road.
While the
draft environmental assessment found that construction will cause some
disruptions, most of the long-term impacts, such as those to wildlife
and water flows, will be negligible.
“My feeling is that we’ve
done a really good job with the analysis,” said Rod Bonacker, the Forest
Service special projects coordinator. “Nothing jumped out at us as a
major environmental impact, and that’s what we were looking for with
this.”
The city needs a special use permit from the Forest
Service before it can begin work on the intake facility and the
pipeline. Some of that work is scheduled to begin this year, probably in
late summer or early fall.
Even though the Forest Service
determined it likely will give the city such a permit, the municipality
is still required to follow certain directives.
For example, the
intake facility was built in 1926 and is eligible to be nominated to the
National Register of Historic Places. Since the plan is to replace this
building, the Forest Service is requiring the city to document all
aspects of the structure so thoroughly that someone could essentially
rebuild it by examining the records.
The city’s new intake
facility must also be built to what the report calls “rustic-style
Cascadian design,” meaning it should have a natural stone veneer and
roof girders made of wood or steel that is painted “in a wood-toned
color.”
An additional requirement will force the city to monitor
water flows and fish populations in Tumalo Creek, something that
Bonacker said will be coordinated with the Forest Service.
Bend
City Manager Eric King said he hopes information from the Forest
Service’s environmental assessment will help the city improve water
flows on Tumalo Creek. And in an email he pointed to a resolution the
City Council passed last week that will form a committee to look for
ways to do just that.
That resolution also aims to delay about
half the cost of the $70 million Bridge Creek project to lessen the
impact on ratepayers.
“I am pleased that the Forest Service has
found no significant impact in the rebuilding of the intake facility and
main transmission line which helps preserve half of the City’s water
supply,” King wrote.
“We are aware of the public concern
regarding flows on Tumalo Creek, and hope that the analysis completed by
the Forest Service can alleviate those concerns. We look forward to
working with the Forest Service, as well as other interested parties and
agencies, to gather important data to help guide future improvements to
flow on Tumalo Creek.”
But what’s likely to pique the interest
of those who oppose the project is what’s not in the assessment. The
Forest Service only compared the city’s proposed project to the
alternative of doing nothing, and continuing to use the system as is
until it fails.
“We didn’t analyze at all an alternative that
would have required the city to use all groundwater,” Bonacker said.
“That’s not in our purview, and we don’t have any say in that decision.”
The
Forest Service also didn’t study another option critics have suggested
lately, which is to consider a much shorter pipe that would draw water
from Tumalo Creek near the city’s Outback reservoir and treatment
facility off Skyliners Road. They say this could save money on the
pipeline as well as leave more water in a stretch of creek.
The
Forest Service, on the other hand, didn’t consider such an option
feasible, explaining in the draft study that there are too many
complications with issues including construction and water rights.
But
Central Oregon Landwatch Executive Director Paul Dewey said the federal
agency relied too heavily on information from the city and its
consultants in this determination. There are several cases where the
environmental assessment cites information that comes from consultants
the city paid to do work on the project.
Some of these citations
come from an oft-criticized study performed by HDR Engineering Inc. that
compared the current project to an all-groundwater system. At the time
of that comparison, the firm had more than $10 million to gain from the
city if it were hired to continue with the project.
“Frankly, it
looks like it was written by the city and HDR rather than the Forest
Service,” Dewey said. “This is concerning because we were really looking
forward to an independent assessment of the impacts.”
Other city
consultants cited in the study include water rights attorney Rick Glick
of Davis Wright Tremaine and the engineering firm Brown and Caldwell,
which performed an analysis on several alternatives, including the
current proposal.
Bonacker said it’s not uncommon for the Forest
Service to rely on such data, especially if it’s the best information
available. There’s a 30-day period for the public to weigh in on the
draft environmental assessment; he said that if anyone has better
information, now is the time to submit it. After that, a final decision
will be issued, although that can be appealed and then taken to federal
court.
“I get that there’s a lot of controversy about this and
that there are people who are not happy with the city’s decisions,”
Bonacker said. “I hope that they wouldn’t take that out on us, but I
realize this is the big opportunity to really weigh in and judge the
city’s work.”
— Reporter: 541-633-2160,
ngrube@bendbulletin.com