The City of Aumsville now has the funds in hand to move forward on the project to replace its water treatment plant.
Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley announced in late February that the project, which is required to meet state pollution requirements, will be receiving $15 million in additional funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The new funds include a $6 million grant and a $9 million loan.
The additional funding brings the city’s total in hand to $20 million, which city administrator Ron Harding said is sufficient to move forward with the project “as long as the construction estimates hold up during the final bid process.”
Aumsville already has begun design work on the new plant, which Harding said the city hopes to have in operation by 2027.
“The city has completed a 20% design for the project and has just approved a contract to complete the full design,” Harding told Our Town. “This process will take around 12 to 18 months to complete, and once completed, the project will need to go out to the lowest bidder through that process.”
Harding also noted a couple of other hoops the city must jump through.
“The city will also need construction funding for the $15 million loan and loan forgiveness,” he said. “USDA only provides permanent funding, so we must secure a short-term loan from DEQ. This is a separate process that we are working on now. Once the project is completed, the USDA loan will pay off the construction loan. It sounds like a lot of effort, but that’s how these projects and funding pools work.”
Ausmville was facing a 2028 deadline from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to reduce the ammonia content in the city’s lagoon treatment facility to meet the newer standards set by DEQ.
Failing to meet the standards would have meant no shot at receiving the required permit that would allow the city to discharge its effluent into the North Santiam River, Harding said.
Mayor Angelica Ceja said that without the federal assistance and an earlier $5 million state grant, funding and completing the project would have been “almost insurmountable.”
Last spring Ceja went door-to-door in the community of 4,200 to explain the situation to residents and warn them of possibly gigantic spikes in water bills if the city were faced with footing the entire bill for the water treatment work.
“Without [the new funding], our residents would simply not be able to afford their homes or cover the cost of essential services,” Ceja said in a statement that accompanied the Wyden-Merkley funding announcement.
Merkely noted in the release that “this sizeable federal investment and capital infusion will ensure that Aumsville residents can build this wastewater treatment facility they need to bring them into the 21st Century without facing triple-digit water bills.”
“Communities depend on water and wastewater systems to grow and thrive,” Wyden said, “and having efficient and safe water infrastructure is all the more important when facing dry conditions brought on by the current climate crisis.”
