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Water utility budget includes Arrowhead purchase under Forest Legacy grant, SCADA upgrades and Riverside wells work
Summary
Staff presented water fund items including expected Forest Legacy and OWEB grants to purchase Arrowhead Ranch watershed property, multi-year SCADA upgrades, equipment replacements at Wicks water treatment plant, and work to bring new Riverside wells and reservoirs into service; a 7.1% water rate increase is included for the year
Water-utility staff told the committee the city expects to receive multiple grants and to advance several capital projects this year, and the proposed budget includes a 7.1% rate increase for water services.
Finance and water staff said the budget includes a US Forest Service Forest Legacy grant and an OWEB (Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board) drinking-water source protection grant to support purchase of the Arrowhead Ranch watershed property (several thousand acres) for watershed protection. Staff presented those grants on the revenue side and indicated that funds will be expended from the water capital reserve fund as the purchase completes.
Staff outlined a multi-year SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) upgrade program: phase 1 at the Wicks Water Treatment Plant is underway and expected to complete by December 2025; phase 2 will extend SCADA to wells, reservoirs and sewer lift stations and will be budgeted across water and wastewater reserve funds over multiple years.
Other water projects in the capital program include vertical-frequency-drive (VFD) replacements at the Marks and Jordan wells (to permit taking the Garrison reservoir offline for maintenance), hypochlorite storage-tank replacement at the treatment plant, sludge-lagoon cleaning contracts, tree/brush removal in the watershed to reduce fire risk (coordinated with Mid Columbia Fire and Rescue), and installation of Starlink to improve communications at the Wicks site.
Staff noted the budget assumes a 7.1% water-rate increase for the full year (part of a water-master-plan implementation) and that the water utility will also see an increase in grant receipts this year compared with the prior year because several large grant-funded projects are active. The committee asked about contingency and beginning-balance accounting; finance staff explained the citys contingency calculation excludes transfers to capital and that some beginning fund-balance dollars will be used for one-time capital projects.
