Report finds potential Bend water system savings

            An engineering firm contracted by Bend officials has determined several ways to cut costs on an initally estimated $58 million water system upgrade.

But the firm’s report did not consider the feasibility of switching from a surface water to all groundwater well project given study “constraints” stipulated by the city. A group of local business and professional leaders have argued the wells would be less a less expensive and more environmentally-sensitive alternative.

            The “value engineering” or VE draft report by Robinson, Stafford & Rude Inc. of Florida dated March 11, 2011 says Bend could save $12.3 millon on the project by making several changes.

            Among the most prominent of these would be to reduce the size of a new 10-mile surface water pipeline from 36 inches to 30 inches and to continue using the other, newer of two lines that was built in the 1950s.

            Not replacing the newer pipeline would also mean the city would be under less time pressure to build it concurrent with planned construction work by the US Forest Service on Skyliner’s Road in the Tumalo-Bridge Creek watershed. Bend has been informed by the federal Environmental Protection Agency that it needs to upgrade the water system by 2012 to meet Clean Water Act requirements, although it’s possible that deadline could be extended.

            The city and the engineering firm that designed the project have previously supported replacing both pipelines, in part to facilitate construction of a hydropower power project estimated to add another $15 million to the $58 million upgrade budget.

            RSD Inc. suggested the city reevaluate the proposed hydropower project given such variables as potential income from the sale of power to offset development costs.

            In a statement addressing “project constraints,” the RSD report noted it did not consider “aspects of the project that the city does not want scrutinized by the team, because they represent project elements that, in the opinion of the city, cannot be changed.

            “Constraints may result from a variety of political technical, or environmental issues,” the report said.

            Included in the list of constraints were requirements that the point of water withdrawal not change; that there must be a surface water supply and a membrame filtration system.

            Going into the future, the RSD report said Bend should continue to rely on a “two-source, integrated system” that combines surface water withdrawal and transmission and wells “in a complementary fashion, rather than viewing each supply as an independent system.”

            Either groundwater wells or surface water sources could face quality or quanity problems, according to RSD. 

            But having both sources, “provides the City of Bend with a substantially improved level of confidence in water availability.”