Springfield Utility Board has been working for years to secure an additional source of drinking water. State funds will help them to create an intake station on the banks of the McKenzie River in the Thurston area.
Courtesy of Springfield Utility Board
Springfield Utility Board is working to establish an additional source of drinking water. It recently received nearly $10 million in state funding to help.
The funds from Oregon’s Safe Drinking Water Revolving Loan Fund go to SUB’s McKenzie River Water Supply Project.
Currently, Springfield’s drinking water is sourced from groundwater wells and intake from the Middle Fork of the Willamette River.
Project Manager David Looney told KLCC an additional water source would make Springfield more resilient. SUB’s projections show a 48% increase in peak demand for water over the next 50 years.
“It puts us in a position to meet anticipated increases in water demand for the next several decades,” he said. “It provides a new, redundant, or additional, source of water. And it also strengthens our ability to help our community recover if there’s a natural disaster.”
Looney said the state funding helps pay for design and permitting. He said that process is expected to be completed by early next year.
The project will include a new intake pump station on the McKenzie River in their Thurston Well field. There will be a pipeline to take the water to a new water treatment plant near Thurston Middle School and a pipeline to take the treated water to their distribution system. Construction is expected to begin in mid-2027.
SUB received $9,638,749 from Oregon’s Safe Drinking Water Revolving Loan Fund. The program is administered by Business Oregon in partnership with Oregon Health Authority.
Rachael McDonald is a reporter with KLCC. This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.
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