In western Lane County, the unincorporated community of Mapleton has struggled with its water infrastructure. Community leaders had stitched together funding to improve Mapleton’s system. That patchwork included federal funding from the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to reporting by KLCC.
While it’s been able to claw back some money with the help of lawmakers, the community has still lost funds and resources after federal changes. Art Donnelly is the vice chair of the board of commissioners of the Mapleton Water District. He joins us with more details about Mapleton’s situation and what’s at stake for those living in rural areas with failing infrastructure.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced in April that it was terminating grants it had made through its BRIC program – that stands for Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities. A total of $140 million was promised for more than a dozen projects around the state. We’re going to hear right now what the loss of this federal funding will mean for just one of those affected communities.
Mapleton is an unincorporated community in Lane County. It’s going to lose out on more than $3 million that was supposed to go to fix its aging water system. Art Donnelly is the vice chair of the Mapleton Water District. He joins us now. It’s great to have you on Think Out Loud.
Art Donnelly: Hi Dave, thanks for having me today. I appreciate the opportunity and I really want to commend Ann Vileisis and Dylan Kruse for very, very strongly articulating some of the same points that I’d make if we had a longer conversation.
Miller: Well, we do have time right now to talk about what’s happening there. What was this FEMA money going to be spent on in Mapleton?
Donnelly: Specifically, that FEMA grant and the matching state funds were to fund an additional 300,000 gallon finished water storage tank. This was an absolutely necessary addition to our water distribution system. The current water storage capacity that we have is 300,000 gallons under the recommended storage capacity for a district of our size – but unfortunately that’s not the real story. The real story is that the 600,000 gallons of current storage that we do have is in tanks that have exceeded their estimated service lives and require approximately a million dollars in upgrades to be of sustained use to us. We’re in crisis right now. So the loss of that total package would have been $3.25 million along with state funds is a critical issue for this community.
Miller: I’m going to take a step back. Can you give us a sense for the overall shape of your water district’s water system?
Donnelly: To give you some context … Well, first I’m gonna say I think Mapleton is special. It’s beautiful, but it’s typical of most rural communities in Oregon. Our water system was put in the ground in the early 1950s, which means that the majority of the 11.5 miles that we distribute the water through and our storage system is over 70 years old. That worked great for about 50 of those 70 years, but as many of your listeners are familiar with, Mapleton has experienced repeated failures of that system over the past several years – that’s only gonna get worse.
Miller: One of those failures happened about five years ago during the Sweet Creek Fire. Can you tell us about what happened?
Donnelly: During 2020, when we had the Sweet Creek Fire burning, water was drawn from the Mapleton Water District system. Because of the fragile nature of the pipes, we had a major pipe rupture that occurred at that time. That led to a cascade of events and that event took down our water treatment plant. We have recently held a grand opening celebration for our new $3.75 million water treatment plant. I’m extremely happy about that, but that was necessitated because of the failure of the distribution system. So that means, Dave, that we’re pumping 21st century water through mid-20th century pipes. It’s a frightening situation to say the least.
Miller: Right, so you have clean water now, but you don’t have a great way to store it or to get it safely to customers.
Donnelly: Correct.
Miller: What options do you have right now?
Donnelly: Again, to put it in context – and we know more or less the outlines of this – at the end of 2024, there was approximately $800 billion of infrastructure money at the federal level to fund things like water systems. That’s gone, functionally gone right now. So like most communities, what we’re looking at is the state’s Clean Water Revolving Fund and some limited support from the USDA. That would mean a package of grants and loans, heavily weighted towards loans.
Miller: Meaning that ratepayers would have to pay those back.
Donnelly: Right, similar to Port Orford’s situation. Our ratepayers right now are paying three times the recommended affordability index for their monthly water bills. Were we to fund the improvements that we need to our water system with the loans that are offered to us right now, our ratepayers would be paying over $300 a month for their water bills
Miller: Just for water, not even sewer in addition?
Donelly: Not even sewer in addition. And remember, Dave, we live in a community that has a median household income that’s well less than half of Oregon’s average median household income.
Miller: I mean $300 is an impossibility for …
Donelly: It is an impossibility.
Miller: … your customers, for residents there. So, where does that leave you? I mean, essentially you’re saying that you cannot pay for this work to be done on your own. You can’t borrow the money and then have your ratepayers pay it back because they don’t have that money. And yet this work needs to be done. So what options do you feel like you actually have?
Donnelly: It’s a difficult question to answer. And I’ve got to tell you, the reality of these special districts – and the Mapleton Water District is a special district – is that they are community owned, volunteer-operated essential services. We do have paid staff, of course, but much of the heavy lifting is done by people like me. We’re volunteers. I learn on a daily basis. I’ve developed a deep network of contacts at the county, state and federal level. We’re looking at every option we can look at. It’s going to be very, very difficult and very slow progress over the next several years. I don’t see the environment for infrastructure funding improving very soon.
I think that at the state level and the community level, one of the problems is that a lot of people don’t understand how their essential services work. They don’t understand where they come from or how they’re paid for. They’re used to turning on the tap and having water come out, just like they’re used to going to the store and getting meat. They don’t really care what the backstory is. People have got to get educated, including the legislators, about where we’re really at right now, because there is a tsunami of need in rural America for infrastructure upgrades. We did a great job in the 1950s and 1960s. We have really invested in this country. And we have largely now decided to stop doing that – that’s a terrible mistake.
Miller: We’ve been talking about this pulling back of federal funding for this particular infrastructure grant project. But I’m curious, as a volunteer leader of this one water district in the Willamette Valley, where you’ve seen the effects of other federal drawdowns of funding?
Donnelly:: Clarify what you mean there, Dave. I’m not sure.
Miller: Because you’re also talking with people from the EPA or the U.S. Department of Agriculture, basically every federal agency is seeing a reduction in its workforce. I’m curious if that’s also affecting the work that you are trying to do?
Donnelly: It is. And first, I’ve got to really commend the people that we do work with at the EPA Region 10’s office, USDA’s local rural development office, and on and on. We work with some extremely dedicated people, but the staff reduction, the force reduction that has occurred in those offices has slowed things down to a crawl. So when it comes to getting information and getting money, things are literally taking more than twice as long as they did. However, deadlines for submitting grants or using the money that you do get has not changed. The requirements have not changed. There is less technical assistance out there across the board and one of the things that small communities like us lack is technical expertise. So with the lack of that technical assistance, we’re very hamstrung as to our ability to go after further funding. It needs to be addressed.
Miller: Two weeks ago, Oregon’s Attorney General Dan Rayfield joined 19 other states in suing the federal government over the cuts to this FEMA grant program. How much hope do you have that this decision, the administration’s decision, will be reversed and you will get this money?
Donnelly: In the case of the FEMA BRIC funds, I’m not extremely hopeful. I’m not optimistic. Our legislators did a very good job of clawing back money that was rescinded from the EPA, thank goodness. So we have that $800,000 coming in that we had lost. That’s going to help a little bit, but that money was congressional direct spending. That’s a different story than the FEMA BRIC grants. The executive branch does have more leeway there. I’m hopeful that there’s a strong case to be made. I’m not optimistic about the outcome.
Miller: Art Donnelly, thanks very much for your time. I really appreciate it.
Donnelly: Thanks, Dave.
Miller: That’s Art Donnelly. He is the vice chair of the Mapleton Water District. It serves the unincorporated community in Lane County that had been counting on a FEMA grant to improve its water system. That grant was abruptly canceled in April.
“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every weekday and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.
If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983.
