City Water and Sewer Department Update 11-16-05

The Oregon City Council unanimously approved the new City Sewer Use Ordinance and the City now has an addition to its City Code that details how the sewer system can be used.  The City for the first time is gong to start accepting certain industrial waste from Woods and E. D. Etnyre and Co., and this industrial waste is monitored for content with a surcharge per volume. 

The Water Reservoir on Daysville Road has been cleaned and painted and well #5 is now on stand-by for emergency use.  The well is run everyday for an hour to keep it in peak operating condition.  This reservoir has been providing the City of Oregon water, while problems are resolved at the Liberty Hill Reservoir.

The maintenance repairs of the Liberty Hill Reservoir are being delayed for at least a year, because of the problems encountered with the control valves.  These valves have not been used in 25 years and both the fill and discharge valves are leaking.  The discharge valve will be repair or replaced within the next few days and at that time we may reroute the discharge line.  The discharge line is terra cotta tile and is poor condition.  The discharge flows on to developed private property, and we would like to improve this situation if possible.  The 850,000-gallon reservoir is going to need to be emptied and filled a couple of times, as work is completed on the tank.  The tank could not be drained below two feet and it was impossible to set up scaffolding to do what is necessary. 

The City is sorry for the inconvenience with three water main leak repairs that were necessary in the past week.  The break at Seventh and Jackson was particularly complicated and required work on Saturday evening and all day Sunday.  Thanks to the crew for the special effort.  The other leaks were at the Roadhouse Restaurant and Adams and First Street.  Because of the excavation on Adams Street the City took the opportunity to make some improvements and add a fireplug at the end of the street.  We have previously had two water main breaks since the first of the year.

It is unfortunate but water main breaks are a common occurrence with older water systems such as ours, and changes in temperature cause pipes to move causing ruptures.

In the almost six years that I have been Water and Sewer Commissioner the City has replaced ten obsolete fire hydrants and added two new ones.  We have also added extensions to several hydrants to make them more serviceable as recommended by the Oregon Fire Protection District.

A bid was accepted from George Noone for the 30 x 60 lot that was previously the Library Apartments.