As the Portland Water Bureau pushes forward to build a 2 Billion dollar (and counting) filtration plant, it has shown little care or concern for the local community which it is devastating.
Touting a hypocritical and erroneous "Good Neighbor Policy" it has proven to be nothing of the sort.
Though the PWB did win their fight at the Multnomah County Land Use Hearing to building an extravagant, boondoggle of a plant, the community and ratepayers** have vowed to push on and are taking the fight to LUBA (Land Use Board of Appeals).
The approval from Multnomah County is not without conditions, which have yet to be met by the PWB. One condition relates to their desire/need to widen Carpenter Lane, a dead end lane that is the rural road to 7 homes and a nursery farm. This road is within unincorporated Multnomah county and has not seen care or improvements in years. Therefore, one condition is to design a plan to improve the road to current county standards (of which are 60 ft right of ways, previously 30 ft.)
The PWB has submitted this plan, but has not yet received approval on it and therefor a permit to proceed with updating the road. (See email response to resident on this topic below)
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Hi Bonita,
Is the proposed budget for the filtration plant still $1.84Billion? Yes, $1.843 billion is still the program budget. (Note the language. Does not confirm that this is final, simply what they are working under this number at this time. Ground has yet to be broken or other obligations met that will require additional financial increases.)
How much has been spent to date? We’ve spent approx. $129M to date on filtration and pipelines
Has PWB received the permit to widen Carpenter Lane? The permit is still being reviewed by the County.
Best,
(name witheld)
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COLLATERAL DAMAGE: The unfortunate back story to this is the fact that this is a rural community with redwood trees that have lined the streets for 70+ years. In addition, there are 15ft plus high hedges that are over 20 years old that have, over time, become part of the right of way.
This week, these trees and hedges were taken down, in spite of the requests by homeowners to hold off as long as possible as all the permits had not yet been approved. (See above) What kind of good neighbor does that?
These trees can never be replaced now. If the PWB loses its fight for land use, they surely will not be building or fixing the road and the trees will have become collateral damage to the bullying tactics of the Portland Water Bureau.
This is just one of many examples of why the PWB needs accountability for its practises and fiscal responsibility. Please help. You are receiving this as you had expressed an interest in this project in the past.
Your Call To Action: Know that there are those fighting this on the "frontlines" for YOUR benefit. All Portland ratepayers will be hit with crazy high water rates! You can help in very easy, simple ways.
- Share, share, share. There is no cost to you to share this email and ask others to join the change.org email list. They will thank you for letting them know of such an important tissue at hand.
- DONATE WHAT YOU CAN. Understand, we fight and win now with a little bit of temporary financial investment, OR we lose and have A LOT of financial cost ongoing, forever. Which would you choose? Can't afford a lot? We understand. Our community is tapping the same pockets over and over. We need more help. $20, $50, $100 will go a long way, both for attorneys fees and for advertising the cause. (Please DO NOT send money to Change.org for this cause. As much as we appreciate this platform, funds donated to them do not go to our cause.) Donate to: https://cottrellcpo.com/donate/
Thank you so much for taking precious time to read this! Let us know how we are doing, share, and consider supporting the fight.
More to come on how the rates will affect YOU in your bill!