Fact-Checking the Bend City Engineer on the Controversial Surface Water Improvement Project (SWIP)
Allan Bruckner, a Former Mayor of Bend compiled a summary of many of the issues raised by critics of the City of Bend’s Surface Water Improvement Project (SWIP) for Cascade Business News. The article, entitled Contentious. Confusing. Controversial. Trying to Make Sense of a Complicated Issue was published in the January 30, 2012 edition of the paper. Subsequently, Tom Hickmann, city engineer/assistant public works director, submitted a multi-component response to the article, which was posted on-line on March 8, 2012 and a shorter version was included in the print version of
this publication.
In order to ensure that Bend city councilors and the public have the best information possible, Bruce Aylward, Ph.D. and Mike Tripp, M.D. have taken the time to compile a document that fact-checks Hickmann’s article against city documents and records.
This article summarizes that document, and clarifies disputed topics such as: Bend’s well capacity and the City’s ability to go to an all-well water system, availability of the city’s water rights on Tumalo Creek and water withdrawals from the Creek with and without this water project.
Visit the Cascade Business News website for the full analysis of the City Engineer’s recent statements: www.cascadebusnews.com/ news-pages/e-headlines.
SECTION 1: City of Bend Water Use
1.1 Peak Summer Use (maximum daily demand)
City Engineer Statement:
The City has recorded peak summer use (maximum daily demand) exceeding 29 mgd in 2009 {A-1, B-6}.
Comment: The City Engineer has his facts wrong and his comment is misleading. The 29 mgd (million gallons per day) maximum daily demand figure was reached in 2008 not 2009 (see Exhibit 2-3 of the City’s June 2011 Water Management and Conservation Plan). Mr. Hickmann does not mention that in each of the three summers since 2008, demand has dropped off dramatically. Bend is now four years down the road, its citizens are enduring a severe economic downturn, and water rates have been rising at 6% year over the last decade. It is not surprising that water use by Bend ratepayers is falling.
1.2 The City’s Annual Average Diversions
City Engineer statement:
The City currently plans to operate the new system within an annual average diversion of up to 21 cubic feet per second (cfs) {A-17, B-7}.
Comment: In order to fully utilize the new pipe capacity of 13.6 mgd (million gallons per day) or 21 cfs (cubic feet per second), the City will have to resolve the turbidity issues with the creek water that has caused the City to take the surface water system off-line almost 20 percent of the time over the last five years. Also, as the City acknowledges in its 2011 Water Conservation and Management Plan (page 2-32) the seniority of its water rights precludes it reaching 13.6 mgd during the summer months. Thus, the City Engineer is incorrect to imply that the City may reach an annual average diversion of this magnitude. Nevertheless, it is clear that the City does intend to greatly increase its use of surface water once the SWIP is in place, primarily during the winter months. In 2010, the City’s annual average diversion of surface water was just under 6 mgd. So, taking Mr. Hickmann’s statement as an objective, it appears that the City hopes to take 134 percent more water out of Tumalo Creek once the SWIP is built.
SECTION 2: Water Utility System Capacity and Reliability
2.1 Groundwater Well Capacity
City Engineer statement:
The City’s water master plan, developed by the engineering firm Optimatics, identified the reliable capacity of the City’s groundwater production facilities to be 9.0 MGD (Appendix E, Table 3, page 7). {A-1, B-6}.
Comment: This number is incorrect. Mr. Hickmann confuses the water utility’s supply capacity with its storage capacities. The Optimatics table to which Mr. Hickmann refers is commenting on the 9 mgd in wells that can be used as storage equivalents. Mr. Hickman’s response uses the 9 mgd out of context, confusing the storage capacities analysis with the “firm” or reliable supply capacity of Bend’s water utility. Optimatics analyzes supply capacities in depth in multiple other sections of the 2011 report; well supply capacity is tabulated at 33.3 mgd, with a total of 32.2 mgd in service as of 2010 (Table 2.2, page 14 of Optimatics Final Master Plan Update). If the City water utility has only 9 mgd of reliable well and surface water capacity is limited to a “firm planning” capacity of 7.4 mgd (Water Conservation and Management Plan, 2011), how is the City to provide a reliable supply to a city with a maximum daily demand of from 22 to 28 mgd (as detailed in Section 1.1)?
2.2 Reliability of Wells
City Engineer statement:
The City currently has 20 operational wells at nine well sites, with a total installed pump capacity (which assumes all pumps are operational) of 30.5 mgd. However, the City cannot rely on all of this capacity from groundwater since well machinery has been known to fail without warning {A-1, B-6}.
Comment: SWIP will not eliminate the need to correct these deficiencies or avoid this cost. Correcting well infrastructure deficiencies is not a cost of switching to a ground water only system. It is a cost of correcting deficiencies in the existing water utility so as to meet the “firm” supply capacity standard for municipal water systems. If the City’s priority is truly to provide reliable, safe water, the City should already have prioritized correction of well infrastructure deficiencies.
2.3 The City’s Ability to go to a Well Water-Only System
City Engineer statement:
The City does not currently have sufficient groundwater production facilities to reliably meet Bend’s water demand with only groundwater sources…{A-16}.
Comment: The Optimatics study makes it clear that well water reliability questions must be addressed even if Bend continues to use a dual-source system. Since the current City delivery system is often turned off during high flow conditions in the creek due to excess turbidity in the water, if the City’s wells cannot meet demand reliability on their own, then the utility will fail to meet demand. Due to the rapid drop in water demand in the last few years, and the continued expansion of the well system, Bend’s well capacity currently meets firm supply capacity standards for a well water-only utility. The City could convert to a well water-only system immediately.
SECTION 3: Availability of City of Bend Tumalo Creek Water Rights
3.1 Winter Month Demand and Supply
City Engineer statement:
…for six to seven months of the year the City will be able to meet 100 percent of its demand from the surface water supply in twenty years {A-14}.
Comment: Outside the irrigation season, which runs from April 1 to October 31, there is a five-month period during which the City competes for stream flow in the creek only with the instream water right that is held by the State of Oregon. For the five non-irrigation months (not the six to seven months quoted) the City has the rights and water is available so that the City could meet 100 percent of its projected demand for 2030 of 21 cfs from Tumalo Creek. However, at present the City does not meet its winter need, which averages around 6 mgd, from its surface water system. Storms in the watershed create turbid flows that the City does not want in their system. As a result, when these events occur, the City does not take any surface water into its system at Outback. Over the last five years the City has, on average, had to avoid taking surface water 62 days a year. It might be more appropriate to suggest that the City may be able to meet a large proportion of its future winter demands for 5 to 6 months out of the year.
3.2 Summer Months Supply and Demand
City Engineer statement:
“The City uses surface water as its primary source …. Surface water is supplemented with groundwater to meet peak summer demands {A-1, B-6}.
Distribution of water rights by seniority occurs when flows are low to help protect the creek. When the City is placed under distribution, this is typically for less than two months of the year when this does occur. This is not a frequent and long term event which would make the surface water supply less reliable. {A-15}.
Comment: Mr. Hickmann provides no evidence to support his assertion that “typically” this distribution occurs “less than two months” a year. In fact, an analysis of the City’s own data on use of surface water during the irrigation season indicates that the City’s water rights on Tumalo Creek are regulated at least a portion of each month for the period April through October (seven months). It is estimated that the City’s water rights on Tumalo Creek are regulated an average of 79 percent of the time during irrigation season, including over 90 percent of the time on average in the months of June through October. This finding suggests, that in planning for SWIP, the City has over-estimated its water right availability. This unduly pushes more costs on to the well-water only alternative and overstates the revenues from hydropower when comparing SWIP to alternatives.
SECTION 4: City Water Use and Tumalo Creek
4.1 City’s Impact on Tumalo Creek
City Engineer statement:
The hydroelectric facility, if built, would not take additional water from Tumalo Creek. The facility would generate renewable energy from water that the City uses to meet municipal water demand {A-17, B-7}.
Comment: The statement by Mr. Hickmann is misleading. As confirmed in Section One, the SWIP will take additional water from Tumalo Creek, particularly in the winter months. Median stream flow in the creek during winter months is around 70 (cfs). According to its projections, the City will be diverting 21 cfs or just under one-third of the water in the creek by 2030. Measured at the location where the City currently returns unwanted flow from its pipes to Tumalo Creek (near Outback), the SWIP will increase the City’s current take of water during the winter months from 8.5 cfs (5.5 mgd) to 21 cfs or a 150 percent increase over current diversions. Further, under a well only water supply system the City would divert 0 (zero) water from Tumalo Creek. Because the SWIP involves fully rebuilding the City’s pipes that bring the water into town the SWIP should be (and was) compared to other alternatives that do not involve rebuilding the City’s surface water diversion and conveyance system. The “with and without” SWIP comparison then would be between 21 cfs in diversions and 0 cfs of water diverted.
4.2 Restoration of Tumalo Creek flows
City Engineer statement:
Tumalo Irrigation District, who owns large senior water rights on Tumalo Creek, have identified over 30,000 acre feet of losses and are actively conserving the 50 percent leakage within their canal system. Additional options exist to prioritize flows that meet all the needs of fish, farms, and people and the City of Bend is actively working with all basin groups to achieve these goals. {A-15}
Comment: Once again, the City has put forward an argument that lacks credible objective support. An informative response to recent inquiries on this issue was received from the Deschutes River Conservancy. This was summarized in detail for Trout Unlimited and can be found on StoptheDrain.org’s blog. The City argues that in stream flows are best met through programs based on Tumalo Irrigation District conservation programs. However to complete proposed TID conservation plans, major public financing will be required, and unfortunately the resultant flow restoration will still fall far short of the Oregon Fish and Wildlife flow goal of in-stream rights of 32 cfs. “All the needs of fish…” will not be met under the City’s proposal.
SECTION 5: Financial comparison of SWIP with an All-Well Water Alternative
City Engineer statement:
The cost of power required to run well pumps is expected to exceed the City’s interest payments over the course of the City’s loan for the Surface Water Improvement Project. On a present value basis, it is cheaper to pay interest on the loan to invest in energy-efficient surface water than it is to pay long term, escalating power bills for groundwater {A-19, B-10}
Comment: A financial and economic model created to compare the SWIP and Well Water Only alternatives recalculates the figures cited by the City Engineer and shows that he is wrong to say that the present value of the pumping costs will exceed the interest payments. In the Aylward model (details available in the unabridged version of this document), present value of interest payments exceeds pumping costs by more than 2 to 1. In fact, over the 50-year planning horizon the net present value of all the pumping required for all 50 years is less than $20 million (with a 1 percent growth rate and a 3.3 percent increase in power costs). Additionally, in a comprehensive economic comparison of SWIP with a well water-only alternative the well water-only alternative comes out as the superior choice by some $40-$50 million.
For further information: Stop the Drain, moeynewbold@gmail.com • 845-489-2017, www.stopthedrain.org, www.ci.bend.or.us.
