Bend marks completion of $70 million water project

It’s taken longer than expected, due to legal challenges, but Bend officials gathered Friday to celebrate the completion of a new $70 million system to treat Bend’s Bridge Creek surface water and a replacement 10-mile pipeline.

“It’s a very exciting day,” said Bend City Engineer Tom Hickmann, who has been working on this project for 11 years.

Court fights delayed the project, as critics claimed the city didn’t need to pull water from Bridge Creek, a tributary of Tumalo Creek, harming fish and other habitat, and instead could relay on groundwater pumps.

“It was very controversial,” said former city councilor Mark Capell. “To the point of being ugly at times.”

The 30-inch pipe replaces a pair built in the 1920s and ’50s that the city said were in dire need of replacement.

Much of the cost was for a new water filtration system required to meet federal clean-water standards and treat the water for cryptosporidium.

“Bend residents should know this is a fantastic supply of water and it just got better,” said City Councilor Victor Chudowsky. “The water out of your tap literally cannot get any clearer.”

The filtration system will allow the city to use water out of Tumalo Creek, even in the event of a wildfire.

The city has defended its dual-water-source system against challenges, and city councilors also wrestled more than once with whether to use a less expensive ultraviolet system to treat the water, rather than the chosen method of membrane filtration, which officials said can filter out sediment, should a major fire hit the city’s watershed.

“I think for Central Oregon, water matters,” Hickmann said.

Now that the controversy is apparently water under the bridge — Central Oregon LandWatch had no comment on Friday’s event — Bend residents can enjoy their even better drinking water.

“This is one of the things that the community needed badly,” Capell said.