Astoria staff present five-year capital improvement plan and ask DEQ for time to phase final CSO work

Astoria City public works staff presented a draft capital improvement plan (CIP) and an integrated plan for the city’s combined sewer overflow (CSO) program at a Jan. 27 work session, and asked the council to allow a 30-day public review of the CIP while staff submits the integrated plan to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and seeks a schedule extension under the federal integrated-planning process.

Public Works Director Jeff Harrington said the city’s inventory and five-year project list show about $252,000,000 in identified projects over the planning horizon and roughly $1,100,000,000 in infrastructure assets overall. “We have $1,100,000,000 in infrastructure,” Harrington said, urging council members to read appendices showing the asset inventory, project priorities and funding status.

The integrated-plan request centers on Astoria’s remaining CSO work. Harrington and Assistant City Engineer Sydney Moore told the council the city has completed four of five CSO phases and has roughly $18,000,000 of CSO-related expenditures remaining from a program that began in the 1990s and has already spent about $32,000,000. Moore explained that a combined sewer overflow occurs when…