Estacada council adopts water master plan, officials outline capacity and leak-reduction priorities

The Estacada City Council voted to adopt a 20-year water master plan after the city’s engineering consultant said the system can meet projected demand only if the city advances treatment upgrades, adds storage and pursues an aggressive leak-repair program.

The plan, which the Oregon Health Authority reviewed and returned as meeting state requirements, lays out improvements to the city’s source, treatment, distribution and storage and includes a capital-improvement program the consultant estimated at about $12.8 million (2027 dollars) over the next 1–5 years.

Kurt McLeod, the city engineer on the project, told the council the city’s Clackamas River intake can support the equivalent of about 10,000 people on a conservative “peak day” basis and about 18,000 on an average day. He said the nominal treatment plant rating is 2 million gallons per day (MGD) but effective treatment capacity is closer to 1.6 MGD because of equipment limits; peak-day demands have approached 1.4 MGD in recent summers.

“Using the state’s planning assumptions, our 2.6…