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ATTACHMENT B Veneta/EWEB Pipeline Project Overview April 5, 2010 The City and EWEB have been in talks over the last two years regarding the potential for EWEB to supply water to Veneta in an arrangement similar to EWEB’s existing wholesale contracts with various water districts. In February 2008, EWEB produced a report entitled A Concept of Regionalization: Water Sales to the City of Veneta, which explored, in some detail, the logistics of building a 24” diameter pipeline from the current western terminus of EWEB’s system at Terry Street, to the Veneta water treatment facility on East Broadway. This work was conducted concurrent with the City’s update of its Water Master Plan which was adopted in May 2009. This plan examined several potential water sources for the City, including continued groundwater exploration. This study concluded that groundwater development alone was not likely sufficient to meet the City’s long term needs for a population of almost 10,000 residents in 2030. Unlike communities along the Willamette River, Veneta is located at the foot of the coast range, an area composed largely of fractured silt and sandstones, rather than layers of alluvial material which readily and reliably transmit large volumes of high quality groundwater. These siltstones, known as the Tyee formation, are extremely difficult to extract water from. Mineral deposits vary greatly from place to place and drastically affect water quality, and it’s very difficult to predict the location of productive well sites due to the fractured nature of the rock. This all adds up to a water exploration program that is both extremely expensive in terms of exploration and development and unpredictable as to quality and quantity. Even though the City has developed three new wells and a satellite treatment facility since 2005, there have been instances in recent years where peak demand has outstripped production. Fire capacity and redundancy for emergency purposes has been less than desirable, a situation that greatly concerns City staff and elected officials if our community is to return to the level of self-sufficiency we experienced in the early 80s and 90s. All indications are that the highest potential for productive wells lies east of the Veneta UGB. Expansion of well fields into this area may present additional problems related to potential impacts on both surface waters such as Coyote Creek, and on existing residential and agricultural wells. Water right restrictions on local surface waters, including the federal storage at Fern Ridge Reservoir, make use of that water unlikely at best, and other options such as new impoundments have political and environmental costs that are simply too high to consider. 1