Portland’s Water Bureau is set to resume construction on its $2 billion Bull Run water filtration plant following a land use dispute that led the city to put a pause on the project in February.
Construction began in the summer of 2024. But earlier this year, Oregon’s Land Use Board of Appeals, or LUBA, sent a conditional land-use permit decision back to Multnomah County planning officials.
In a 130-page decision, LUBA ruled the county’s definition of impacts to “natural resources” had not been “sufficiently evaluated.”
FILE - Water streams under Dam 2 and towards the raw water intake at the Bull Run Watershed, July 16, 2024. The watershed provides drinking water to nearly 1 million residents of the Portland metro area.
Anna Lueck / OPB
A coalition of residents and farm and land conservation groups opposed the project, and brought the appeal that led to the four-month construction delay.
Those groups, which include 1000 Friends of Oregon and the Multnomah County Farm Bureau, argued the city did not make a clear enough case for needing to build on land zoned for agricultural use.
Now, following a public hearing and extensive written and public comments over whether building the water filtration plant would impact natural resources, Multnomah County planning officials conclude the project will “not adversely affect any category of natural resources”, according to a statement, and can move forward.
“The extensive Multnomah County public land use process provided the project opponents with multiple full and fair opportunities to be heard,” said Priya Dhanapal, the deputy city administrator for Portland Public Works, in a statement.
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“The Multnomah County hearings officer reviewed their considerable testimony related to natural resources and still found that the key criterion for our project was met.”
Quisha Light, the interim water bureau director, said while the city will work to get some workers back to the construction site on Monday, it doesn’t mean construction will start right away.
“It’s going to take some time to get crews back just because many folks have to keep working. So we’re having to transition them from other work,” Light said. “We’re hoping by Aug. 1, we’re actually back into construction.”
Related: Portland pauses $2 billion water filtration plant pending land use dispute
For years, Portland officials have stressed the facility needs to be up and running by Sept. 30, 2027, to comply with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s limits on cryptosporidium, a fecal contaminant that officials say comes from wildlife in the heavily forested Bull Run Watershed.
The treatment plant will also filter out ash and leaves or other sediment if a wildfire hits the watershed.
Light said it is the city’s legal obligation to meet the 2027 deadline, but it is unclear whether city officials will have to ask regulators for an extension.
“We’re going to have to probably have some conversations with our regulators around that date,” Light said. “But until we can assess where we are, how quickly we can start, it’s just really hard to really say, ‘yes, that date is going to change,’ because right now that is the date.”
Costs of construction delay
When the project was approved in 2017, estimates at that time put it at around $500 million. That cost has now ballooned to over $2 billion.
Light said while the project was on pause, the city spent about $80 million on “project activities.”
But, she stressed, some of that was money the city was already planning to spend, on things like site security, road maintenance or purchasing equipment, while some of the money went to unplanned costs because of the pause.
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It’s not clear how much spending went to anticipated costs versus unexpected.
“That’s not broken up and I don’t have the breakdown of how much was already built into the project and how much of it was some additional [cost] as a result of the remand [pause],” Light said.
Light said the water bureau will share a breakdown of costs to Portland City Council in the fall.
The project is still in the early stages of construction, according to Dhanapal.
Missing the 2027 deadline could result in federal fines, and even if construction is completed before then, tariffs from the Trump administration could drive up short-term costs for essential building materials like steel.
