Water Environment Services presents $248 million 2025–2030 capital improvement plan; no action taken

Water Environment Services (WES) staff presented a rolling five-year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) for 2025–2030 to the WES Board of Directors on Jan. 22, 2025, outlining about $247–248 million in proposed wastewater and surface-water projects and a longer-range financial plan for additional surface-water investments.

The presentation, delivered by Ron Waringer, Assistant Director of Water and Environment Services, and Jeff Stallard, Capital Program Manager, highlighted projects the agency says are needed to accommodate growth and maintain existing infrastructure. Waringer called the CIP “a technical document” that identifies what to build, when to build it and how staff plans to pay for it; the formal adoption of the plan was not before the board at this session and will return to a future business meeting for resolution and vote.

The nut graf: The proposed five-year plan schedules roughly $248 million of capital work, with the largest line items focused on capacity to serve growth (including interceptor and force-main expansions and a new outfall) while staff said over half of the plan’s dollars fund reliability and rehabilitation projects to maintain existing facilities. Staff said financing would rely mainly on customer rates and system development charges (SDCs); staff plans a March follow-up session on the SDC methodology that the board must adopt by statute to set SDC rates.

Key projects and status

- Clackamas interceptor and intertie/force-main expansion: WES presented maps showing planned phased expansion of about five miles of the Clackamas interceptor and associated intertie pump-station upgrades to move flows from growing areas, especially Happy Valley, toward facilities with available capacity. Staff said portions of the work are force main (pressurized pipeline) rather than gravity main and that the upgrades are driven by capacity needs rather than environmental compliance alone.

- Kellogg Creek facility and solids handling: Staff said Kellogg Creek in Milwaukie is capacity-limited and cannot expand; proposed projects would redirect some growth-related flow to the Tri-City (Oregon City) facility through expanded pumping and a larger force main.…