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Council sends water master plan draft to Oregon Health Authority, urges focus on reducing leaks
Summary
The Estacada City Council authorized staff to send the draft water master plan to the Oregon Health Authority for review and asked the city engineer to prioritize a program to locate and reduce the city’s approximately 37% system water loss.
The Estacada City Council on Oct. 9 voted to send a draft water master plan to the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) for formal review and asked staff to emphasize a strategy to locate and reduce system water loss before final adoption.
Councilor McElroy led a line of questioning about the plan’s allocation of funds toward production capacity versus leak detection and repair. "We're losing 37% of the [system water] — and we're spending 1.7% of the $14,000,000 on addressing the 37% loss," he said, urging a stronger focus on detection and repair. City staff said the draft includes about $250,000 for studies and leak-detection measures and that the engineer’s final implementation plan will identify targeted repairs.
Why it matters: The master plan sets a 20‑year capital and operational roadmap for production, storage and treatment. Council and staff said addressing water loss would improve available capacity and could delay or reduce the scale of expensive production expansions.
What the council asked staff to do: Council directed that the transmittal to OHA note the council’s intent to prioritize water-loss minimization and to seek benchmarks and measurable targets (for example, an immediate reduction plan and a longer-term goal to bring losses closer to industry norms). Staff said some steps already underway include decommissioning an old pipeline, bench-testing meters, and scheduling contractor work to locate leaks in the oldest parts of the system.
Timing and costs: The draft plan provides a notional cost of roughly $14 million to meet projected 20‑year demand in the baseline scenario; staff and the city engineer noted that estimates are subject to change as design and market conditions evolve. Council asked that cost assumptions be documented and updated when the engineer returns with OHA comments.
Next steps: The plan will be submitted to OHA for comment; staff and the engineer will return with OHA’s remarks and a more detailed implementation schedule and leak-reduction program proposals before adopting a final plan.
