A direct appeal to Portland City Commissioners and Mayor Adams, March 2011

(view full letter with a click)

During recent years, extensive and expensive tests performed in Bull Run and at

our in-town reservoirs demonstrated scientifically what we have all suspected for

years, the lack of Cryptosporidium in our water. We also now know that costs for

meeting current Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) compliance timelines

for construction of new water storage and treatment are extremely high and

come at a time when Portland ratepayers are particularly economically

vulnerable. As stated multiple times by multiple public health officials, there will

be no measurable public health benefit derived from expensive new treatment

and storage currently required by the EPA. We can now prove it, and given that

proof, we are asking for you to change the City’s policy on the LT2 projects.

Now, with new EPA information in hand, we submit the following

recommendations for your timely consideration. Without strong and immediate

action on your part, steep water rate increases will likely force families to leave

their homes and force businesses to leave Portland, increasing the financial

burden on remaining ratepayers while degrading our quality of life.

We ask you to please:

1) Direct the Water Bureau to work with the federal congressional delegation to

secure from the EPA immediate postponement or deferral of both LT2

compliance timelines.

2) Revise and expand the timeline for new water storage construction and direct

the Water Bureau to cease all ground-breaking construction activities related to

LT2 at least during the next fiscal year.

3) Modify the Water Bureau budget, decreasing the investment in LT2- related

capital improvement projects next year and significantly decreasing the

proposed 2011-2012 water rate increase, now projected to be 13.9%.

4) Support submittal of a variance application for in-town reservoirs, based on

the water quality findings of the 2010 American Water Works Association

Research Foundation study (Project 3021). Request that the Drinking Water

Program of the Oregon Health Authority, having assumed primacy for

implementation of the LT2 rule, grant a “clean water variance” for Bull Run

treatment and treatment of finished water in protected in-town reservoirs. Based

on the City of New York’s legal opinion and other research, a variance for open

reservoirs from LT2 covering mandates is authorized under the Safe Drinking

Water Act. It can be granted by the State as it has elected primacy over the

same. It is within Portland’s right to pursue such a variance. Should such an

application be refused, the EPA and/or the State would have to provide a basis

for that decision, and that justification would be subject to legal challenge which

Portland would prevail on.

5) Engage our federal congressional delegation in long-term work to secure

permanent regulatory compliance through a legislative remedy. Such a remedy

is now more likely given the new 112th Congress and continuing economic

challenges faced by the nation as a whole.

Today we have a historic opportunity to restore rationality to public health

decisions, and responsibility to our budgetary process. Thank you for your

efforts thus far and thank you in advance for your further work.