City public works director appeared in person; councilor offered message making case to not rush into $75M commitment

By Morgan Rothborne, Ashland.news 

The long-range security of Ashland’s drinking water supply requires an improvement in its facilities in a less risk-prone setting, but the cost of such a project and uncertainty about who’ll pay how much for how long requires more information before taking on the huge debt involved, Rotary Club of Ashland members were told at their weekly meeting in Wesley Hall at First United Methodist Church on Sept. 12. About 50 Rotarians and guests were present.

The remarks came from Ashland Public Works Director Scott Fleury, who presented an overview of the project and why in his professional opinion it has been deemed necessary, while City Councilor Gina DuQuenne supplied a written statement arguing against the project as it has been proposed. 

Rotary offered the program in order to facilitate a fair and apolitical community discussion for the multi-million infrastructure project, said Ed Finklea, program committee chair of the Ashland Rotary Club. 

“Our club has a tradition of being a forum for public discussion on important issues impacting the community. As Rotarians, we also leave politics at the door,” he said. 

Since the Rotary Club first considered inviting Fleury to speak about the project, a petition garnered enough signatures to put on the November ballot a measure asking voters to approve a City Council resolution passed earlier this year authorizing borrowing up $75 million from the U.S Environmental Protection Agency to fund replacing the water treatment plant and some of the associated infrastructure, Finklea said. 

While DuQuenne apologized that she could not attend the lunch in person, in her written statement (read aloud by Finklea) she argued the cost of the infrastructure would be an undue burden on generations to come with a payback period for the loan projected at around 35 years. 

“I will be brief and let me be clear: I have never said that I did not want clean water and I believe that every municipality needs strong infrastructure. The purpose of the petition was to bring the community into the conversation. $75 million dollars is the biggest bond/loan the residents of Ashland have ever been told to pay,” she wrote. 

DuQuenne said she wanted residents to consider the potential for increased cost of utilities and the inability of some Ashland residents to endure the extra cost. 

“How many years of life do we have on the existing plant, and do we need to do this right now?” she wrote. 

Fleury said in his 18 years with the city, this project has substantive history, tracing its origins to the water master plan in 2012, with additional council conversations stretching back to the 1990s regarding a sense of necessity in upgrading the water treatment plant. The project as it is now looks far into the future. 

“We’re talking over a hundred-year timeline for this project, this life,” he said.

The reason to create the new plant derived from a few factors, he said. The existing plant’s location makes it vulnerable to landslides, wildfire or flooding. The method of treatment used at the plant could be improved to better remove “turbidity” such as debris and sediments, defend against algal blooms and prevent “taste and odor” compound issues occasionally bedeviling the current system, Fleury said. But to add the additional infrastructure for these upgrades would require construction in the narrow canyon area where the plant was built in 1948.

The new plant is planned to be constructed on “what we call ‘the granite pit site,’ which is just up and around the corner from the swimming hole,” Fleury said. Site analysis work on the city property has determined this location will mitigate natural hazards threatening the existing plant. The site also has enough room to construct a plant with the infrastructure upgrades to better treat the city’s water, he said. 

The new plant would also be able to produce between 7 and 9 million gallons of treated water per day to better accommodate the city’s population growth in future. The current plant can almost produce this much. 

“It can produce seven and a half million gallons a day, not continuously but it can do it a few times ‘cause she’s got old tired legs,” Fleury said. “We’ve done a lot of capacity analysis for supply and demand in the future, taking into account climate change, fire impacts in the watershed potentially and consumer demand based on the city of Ashland’s population growth characteristics.”

The project has a 30-month window for construction with additional work to replace the culvert on Ashland Creek at that location. 

“There will be limited access to that area during that time. You’ll still have access to the Wonder Trail and the Fairy Ponds and things like that,” he said. 

How much customers’ rates may rise is still unknown, he said. He is now at work on a water rate cost of service study, a study breaking down the classification of costs against customer classes, known maintenance costs, personnel services and capital investments for the water system and compiles this data into projected rates for those corresponding customer classes. Fleury said he expects to present the results of this analysis to the City Council by the end of the year. 

It is also difficult to tell how much the project will cost due to the unknown variable of potential grant funds for the project. The EPA loan also has some variability in interest rates and is drawn on progressively throughout the project. The $75 million ceiling may not be reached by the project’s end but is there to allow for the highest possible projected cost. 

At the close of the presentation, several Rotarians took the opportunity to discuss the project with their city public works director personally. 

One asked Fleury if he felt delaying the project was kicking the can down the road. He responded the pandemic and other global factors continuously driving inflation are making construction and infrastructure projects difficult, he said. 

“The rates are going up, but the project’s not going to get cheaper, it’s a double-edged sword and it’s rough,” Fleury said.

The council has asked for the rate structure to support low-income rate payers through this project and its resulting costs, Fleury said. The city’s utility assistance program is expected to be expanded.

“We never heard about the ballot (measure),” during the remarks, noted Rotary Club member and former Ashland Mayor Alan DeBoer. 

A “yes” vote supports the City Council resolution, the funding, and continuation with the project as proposed, while a “no” vote kills the resolution authorizing the funding and would spur a new discussion with the City Council 0n what to do with the water treatment plant, Fleury said. 

“Seems to me there’s a huge need, that plant sitting in that canyon is just in the bullseye,” said another Rotarian. 

“It scares me. … One thing I didn’t talk about, there isn’t a ‘do nothing’ option. You’re spending money one way or the other,” Fleury said. “You either have to rehabilitate the plant limping along — those are sunk costs, you know, versus building the new plant.” 

Email Ashland.news reporter Morgan Rothborne at [email protected].

Related stories:

Council reviews funding options for new water treatment plant (Oct. 17, 2024)

County: Enough petition signatures submitted to put Ashland water plant financing on the November ballot (July 3, 2024)

Petition campaign for Ashland $75-million water bond gets extension (May 23, 2024)

Council Corner: Tapping into the city’s master plan for water (May 6, 2024)

Council Corner: Residential water rates in Ashland (April 30, 2024)

Water treatment plant plans approved by Planning Commission (April 27, 2023)