Clean water starts at the source

Water quality and wildfire

In the aftermath of the 2020 Holiday Farm Fire, the safety and security of our community's source of drinking water is at risk. Wildfire can dramatically increase erosion in forests by reducing tree cover, increasing flooding, and causing ash, debris, and sediment to wash into the river.

The Holiday Farm Fire damage to the watershed has the potential to degrade water quality, increase treatment costs, and reduce the production capacity of the Hayden Bridge Water Filtration Plant for years to come if restoration efforts are not completed in key areas.

EWEB made the decision as soon as it was safe to enter the fire-impacted area that we would take early action to protect water quality. In a matter of days, EWEB, McKenzie River Trust, McKenzie Watershed Council, the Upper Willamette Soil & Water Conservation District, and other Pure Water Partners began working with landowners to keep toxic ash and hazardous materials from entering the river. We worked with our federal partners to get additional water quality monitoring equipment installed, which alerts us to high flows and sediment in the river hours before that water reaches the EWEB intake, so we can adjust treatment practices if necessary.

Erosion control measures were installed to keep toxic ash and debris out of the river.

In spring 2021, we began more intensive restoration efforts, working with partners to replant nearly 100 acres of high-priority burned riparian and floodplain areas. In addition, EWEB has created incentive programs to help residents who lost homes in the fire to rebuild while reducing the impacts of development on the McKenzie River.

We take on this work with the support and guidance of our Board of Commissioners, who represent our customer-owners. Over more than a decade of outreach and research, customers have expressed a clear and unchanging priority--ensuring safe, reliable drinking water remains the most important EWEB program.

Funding the recovery

Thanks to years of efforts to manage costs and operate more efficiently, EWEB had the financial headroom to get this critical work started immediately; water cash reserves were used to get boots on the ground and fund priority restoration projects in the short-term. But the long-term work of planning and funding watershed restoration will require extensive financial resources through public and private partnerships to ensure that our community's most basic need for clean, safe, and abundant water is reliably met.

At the March 2021 EWEB Board meeting, Commissioners approved a program that will pay for wildfire restoration projects in the watershed through a flat fee assessed to customer water bills beginning in mid-2021. These funds will be leveraged with other federal, state, and local money to scale up our recovery and restoration efforts.

The community-funded watershed recovery and restoration initiative will supplement EWEB's McKenzie River Source Water Protection Program to safeguard drinking water for Eugene residents by addressing immediate risks such as erosion from high burn areas and redevelopment along the river, as well as longer-term resiliency investments to restore floodplain areas that are critical to water quality and habitat.

The Watershed Recovery Fee will be assessed to all residential and commercial customers based on meter size. For most residential and business customers, the fee will be a flat $3 per month (based on a 1-inch or smaller water meter). Some customers, such as large businesses and those with extensive irrigation needs, will pay more ($4.50 to $30 per month) based on meter size.

The fee will be in place for 60 months (5 years), at which time it will automatically sunset.