A: Bend gets its water from two sources: creek water (or surface water) and well water (aka groundwater). To get creek water, Bend diverts water from Tumalo Creek into Bridge Creek, then it flows through gravity-fed pipes to town. To get well water, Bend has nine wells in the area that pump water to your faucet. On average, Bend uses about a 50/50 split between well and creek water. During summer months, Bend relies more heavily on well water because creek water becomes more scarce and the irrigation districts have more senior water rights.

A: Visit our page “What is the SWIP”

A: No. Since the city cannot use as much creek water during summer months because it does not have as many senior water rights, it must build more wells to meet the demand the City projects even if it does build the SWIP. Bend’s own analysis projects increasing well capacity to about 70mgd (October 2010 HDR Cost Analysis Memo, page 16). Those costs are not included in the $68 million estimate.

A: Bend could save $63 million by switching to all wells. See analysis by Bruce Aylward, Ph.D. in Ecosystem Economics here.

A: Your rates are projected to rise 40% in the next five years and 72% in the next ten years, according to the city’s Finance Director. At least 80% of those increases will directly attributable to the SWIP. See this chart: City Water Rate Increases

A: Yes, the city could support all of its water needs using wells only. Water use in Bend has been dropping since 2008. The peak demand day in 2011 was 21.94mgd (Utilities Water Operations Supervisor). Water Utility Master Plan (2007) shows Bend has well capacity of 33 mgd (including 1.8 mgd at Outback VII, which wasn’t hooked up then). The City has 44 mgd of well water rights through certificates or permits. In other words, there’s no reason to rush the project. The City already has well capacity to supply more than 150% of its 2011 peak day demand, and water rights in hand (a portion still subject to mitigation) of more than 200% of its 2011 peak day demand. If it takes another year to consider cheaper alternatives and EPA shuts off the unfiltered creek water, the City has plenty of wells to handle the City’s supply.

A: A couple of reasons. First, HDR exaggerated the costs of energy, projecting a 6% per year increase in energy prices that has no historical backing. This makes operations & maintenance of wells look more expensive and projects that the hydroelectric facility will bring in far more revenue than is realistic. Second, HDR estimates $30.52 million in costs for construction of new well fields and new terminal storage reservoirs (October 2010 HDR Cost Analysis Memo, page 19). In fact, if the city were to switch to an all-well system, it could drill wells at the Outback Facility it already owns and use its brand new storage reservoirs and gravity-fed piping to send the water to town at a much lower cost than HDR estimates. According to the City’s engineer, there is enough well capacity at the Outback Facility to entirely replace the creek water supply. See Bruce Aylward’s critique of HDR’s analysis here.

A: The City expressly forbid the VE team from studying the cost savings that would be realized by wells as you can see from the “Project Constraints” section found on page 1-2 of the VE team’s report. According to the report, the constraint that the project “[m]ust have a surface water supply” was insisted upon by the City. According to the report, the decision to use surface water (as opposed to well water) was an “aspect[] of the project that the City does not want scrutinized by the team * * *.” A copy of that report can be viewed here.

A: No. Though creek water will flow to the hydroelectric plant with gravity, the water must then pass through a membrane filtration facility to clean germs that are present in creek water. That plant requires electricity to operate. The good news is that reliable automatic backup generators will be on standby to power the wells or treatment plant in the event of a power outage. The City also stores water in elevated reservoirs so that water will be available for a short while even if the backup power fails. In sum, both sources rely on backup power for long outages and both are reliable.

A: No, EPA is not requiring the City to build a treatment plant. There is no filtering requirement for well water, which is where the City already obtains most of its water during the summer when demand is highest. An expensive treatment plant is only necessary if the City intends to continue using creek water, which the City projects will only meet 14% of the City’s peak day needs in 30 years (October 2010 HDR Cost Analysis Memo, page 16).

A: There is a saying that you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket. But what if one of the baskets costs over 20 times more and only provided you with 1/7th of your eggs? At a certain point, this logic no longer makes sense. Plus, well water is actually safer and more reliable than creek water because it is not threatened by wildfire in the watershed or slight changes to the climate.

A: For 2011, HDR’s peak day water usage projections are already off by 50%. As illustrated in this graph.

A: OWEB is working with Tumalo Irrigation District and other entities to restore cold creek water to Tumalo Creek, but the City of Bend’s decision to use creek water instead of ground water works against these efforts (Ramsayer, “Piping project could help fish return to Middle Deschutes” Bend Bulletin. August 6, 2007). By switching to an all well water system, the City could restore creek water worth $15-20 million at the going rate of restoration to the creek, which would mean improved fisheries and better recreation opportunities in the Middle Deschutes. The City’s analysis did not take into account the environmental benefits that could be realized by switching to all wells.

A: In a Letter from Water Watch to City Council in October, 2010, Water Watch clearly states the following: "Given the choice between moving off the Bridge/Tumalo Creek surface water supply and moving wholly to groundwater, WaterWatch strongly supports the choice of moving to groundwater."

Additionally, Water Watch disputes the City's use of their past administrative appeal of the City’s 1995 groundwater application as proof that they will likely challenge any future groundwater applications submitted by the City. In a December 8, 2010 letter to the Public Infrastructure Committee, Kimberley Priestley explains, "WaterWatch’s 1995 protest was submitted before the state committed to requiring mitigation for groundwater use. At that time, WaterWatch’s two major concerns with the City’s application were the impact on Scenic Waterway flows of unmitigated groundwater withdrawals and the high demand projections submitted by the City. In 2001 the City took us on a tour of the Bridge Creek system and urged us to drop our protest because, as they represented at that time, it was part of the City’s long term water supply strategy to move towards groundwater so as to get the City off the Bridge/Tumalo Creek system surface water rights. With this as the background, and with the adoption of the mitigation program, WaterWatch settled the protest with the City. It is important to note that with a groundwater mitigation program in place, WaterWatch chose not to pursue our opposition to the large amount requested by the City or their actual need of this amount, but rather focused our efforts on ensuring that the City was fully mitigating for any groundwater it did use. This, we thought, sent a message to the City that we were willing to work with them on obtaining future groundwater supplies, as long as the impact on flows were mitigated. This remains our position today."

A: No. The true cost of hydropower should also include the cost of piping the water parallel to the creek 11 miles from Tumalo Falls downstream to the City’s treatment plant near Shevlin Park. If the City were to build the project without hydropower it could have saved tens of millions in pipeline construction cost by placing the diversion 11 miles downstream. Hydroelectric revenues are only projected to be $500,000 for the first year of operation, far less than the revenue needed to repay the true cost of adding hydropower to the project, particularly when ratepayers will be paying interest on the money being borrowed to build the project.

A: No. Although budget cuts have required huge layoffs of staff in other City departments, the surface water staff have been hard at work on this large project without any additional pay other than their compensation as city employees.

A: Visit our page "What you can do."