Columbia Water outlines 2025 priorities: consent-decree work, pipe replacement, Canal Recovery and biogas project

Assistant City Manager Shealy told the Health, Social and Environmental Affairs Committee that Columbia Water’s core priorities for 2025 are maintaining regulatory compliance for drinking water, wastewater and stormwater permits and continuing capital work to reduce sanitary sewer overflows.

Shealy said the utility has applied to EPA for two force majeure time extensions tied to events beyond its control — the 2015 flood and COVID-related delays — and that negotiations “have been very fruitful” so far. She said those potential extensions would push some of the longest-lead consent-decree deadlines out roughly 18–24 months, “that would put us out into around 2031 for completion.”

On operations, Shealy described an elevated number of water-main and service-line breaks after January cold snaps and said crews are prioritizing replacements of repeatedly failing lines instead of repeated repairs. Shealy said the utility has been improving customer communications, adding a temporary service-interruption notification, and issuing quicker advisories when contamination risk is suspected. Shealy acknowledged mixed messages reached customers during a recent 16-inch cast-iron main break in Earlwood that led to discolored water calls: “If it doesn’t, call us,” she advised, describing an 85‑year‑old main that was repaired under pressure so a boil-water advisory was not required.

Shealy updated the committee on several large projects: Columbia Water has begun construction on a $62,000,000 resilient water supply project referred to as Canal Recovery and anticipates permitting and bidding for embankment repair and headgate replacement this calendar year. Shealy said embankment repair and headgate replacement construction timelines are roughly 24–30 months and about 18 months respectively and that the utility “anticipate[s] those projects to be completed within calendar year 2027.”

Shealy also outlined a public‑private partnership to recover biogas at the Metro facility. Under the described arrangement a third party would lease city property, build and pay for the gas-cleaning facility, clean the gas to pipeline quality and inject renewable natural gas back into the pipeline; Columbia Water would receive a proportional revenue share. Shealy said no Columbia Water or city dollars will be spent and added that, if the Inflation Reduction Act tax credit remains available, it could produce a “fairly significant lump sum payment to the utility.”

The committee’s discussion included questions about backlog and response times, and Shealy said the utility has reduced backlog and is tracking progress in monthly dashboards. Shealy also noted the utility had modeled conservative new-demand revenue of about $4,000,000 annually from an anticipated customer (Scott Motors) and said that customer will not be online this fiscal year but is projected to be in the next.

No binding council votes on these projects were recorded in the meeting; several items are described as planning, procurement or pending permitting, and Shealy cautioned that some capital bids have come in higher than expected and the utility is repackaging or value‑engineering projects as needed.