$727 million federal loan to aid Portland project

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The Portland Water Bureau recently obtained the largest Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) loan ever from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The $727 million, low-interest loan is expected to cover at least half of the cost of the Bull Run Filtration Project, which consists of three infrastructure improvements that are intended to provide the Portland area with clean water and a seismically resilient supply system by 2027.

“You’re going to be improving the environment; you’re doing to be reducing lead and increasing drinking water quality for over 1 million residents while adding over 4,000 jobs,” Radhika Fox, the EPA’s acting assistant administrator for water, stated during a virtual press conference. “It is everything we want to see in our communities.”

The first of the three projects will produce a new corrosion control facility at the existing Lusted Hill water treatment facility east of Gresham. Ground was broken on this in fall 2020. Highlights include construction of a new building to contain the corrosion control treatment system, a water utility water pump station, and associated piping and support systems. Work is being carried out by Colorado-based general contractor MWH Constructors and expected to be complete by April 2022, ahead of a federal regulatory deadline.

The primary purpose of this project, said Michelle Cheek, the deputy program director for the Bull Run Filtration Project and an engineering supervisor for the Water Bureau, is to make low-alkaline Bull Run water less corrosive to the copper and lead solder pipes found in some home and building plumbing – primarily systems constructed between 1970 and 1985.

The new facility will treat water to raise its alkalinity and help it meet new regulatory standards.

“The existing facility is a chemical feed facility, where they add caustic soda and chemicals to treat the water,” Cheek said. “(The caustic soda system) will be decommissioned once the new facilities are constructed. It’s a pretty process-mechanical focused project.”

The second, larger project will be construction of a new water filtration facility on city-owned property half of a mile south of the Lusted Hill one. When the new facility is brought online, it will mark the end of unfiltered water for Portland water customers.

“We will consolidate all of our treatment facilities here,” said David Peters, the program director for the Bull Run Filtration Project. “The disinfection we do in the watershed with chlorine will move to this site.”

Granular media filtration will be used to remove cryptosporidium and other contaminants, and the new treatment plant will be able to filter up to 145 million gallons of water per day. Planning began in 2017 as part of the regulatory compliance schedule and is now nearly complete. Design work is set to finish in late 2022, with construction scheduled to wrap up by 2027.

“Normally a utility would have done a number of years of planning,” Peters said. “But we had to consolidate that into our compliance schedule because we did not have a plan to do this.”

Some of the firms involved include Brown and Caldwell (program management), and Stantec and Carollo Engineers (predesign and finalization of details for the design). The joint venture of MWH Constructors and Kiewit will serve as construction manager/general contractor.

Finally, the third project will be installation of pipelines for water from the new filtration facility and corrosion control facility. Jacobs of California will design the pipelines. The Water Bureau is likely to issue in April a request for proposals for a CM/GC to handle the project, Peters said.

“We hope to have them on board by the end of the year,” he said.

The new filtration facility and the pipelines will be designed to modern seismic standards and become key components of a system designed to function even after events such as earthquakes, wildfires or storms add contaminants to water.

The Bull Run Treatment Project will generate an estimated 4,700 to 7,500 jobs, with 28 percent of journeyman work hours and 31 percent of apprentice work hours going to minorities and women in the skilled trades. The projects will deliver an estimated $200 million in contracts to disadvantaged, minority-owned, woman-owned, service-disabled-veteran-owned, and emerging small businesses.

The interest rate for the WIFIA loan will be just 1.89 percent. The loan will save the city an estimated $247.5 million in comparison to typical market financing. A combination of revenue bonds and Portland Water Bureau system funds also will be used to pay for the project.