Item B: EWEB Water Rights - Laserfiche WebLink

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ATTACHMENT C To: Mayor and City Councilors Subject: Water Contracts outside the UGB From: Shawn Boles, Howie Bonnett, and Dave Funk Date: June 21, 2010 The intention of EWEB to gain perfection of water from the McKenzie River by becoming a regional water wholesaler will have adverse consequences for Eugene’s sustainability efforts. Acting as a water wholesaler will enable growth of “bedroom communities” which might otherwise be required to grow within the limits of their natural resource availability. In the case of Veneta, which projects a doubling of population growth and a similar increase in water demand in the next 20 years, enabling this growth by providing water could well result in a doubling of commuter traffic to Eugene via highways and arterials already heavily impacted with automobile traffic. Nine-tenths of all workers in Veneta commute to our urban area, mostly by car, contributing to air pollution, carbon dioxide release, and congestion of our streets. At the same time that Eugene’s citizens are developing one of the most insightful and comprehensive climate and energy action plans in the Northwest, with proposals such as 20- minute neighborhoods in which residence, shopping, and employment are close together, it is ironic that EWEB, owned by Eugene’s citizens, should be proposing a water wholesaling policy in opposition to the direction of the City Council to reduce energy consumption and carbon dioxide release. The sale of water to Veneta will have little impact on EWEB’s attempt to perfect an additional 29 million gallons per day. The Veneta sale would represent only a few percent of the total “beneficial” use Eugene needs to demonstrate. Through conservation and more efficient use of water, EWEB’s use of water has grown much more slowly than was predicted in the 1960’s. In fact, EWEB’s maximum demand in millions of gallons/day has not increased in the last 10 years. We recommend that you, members of the City Council, reaffirm our right to deny sale of water by EWEB outside the Urban Growth Boundary, and reject the proposal by EWEB to sell water to Veneta.