Letter Wins Sweeping Community Support

August 8, 2012
(updated Sept 5, 2012 with new signatories)

Mayor Adams and Commissioners
1221 SW 4th Avenue
Portland, OR 97204

Dear Mayor Adams and Commissioners,

We support a change to the City's LT2 compliance strategy for open reservoirs. We support the City submitting to the Oregon Health Authority a new reservoir compliance strategy which involves Hypalon-like covers at Reservoirs 1 and 5 (Mt. Tabor) and Reservoirs 3 and 4 (Washington Park).

We support this Hypalon-like, cover compliance strategy because it protects the recent $40 million ratepayer investment in open reservoir upgrades and would provide the greatest opportunity for Portland to benefit from the LT2 rule revision process currently underway. This is the only option that preserves the functionality of our historic open reservoirs. This option also provides the best opportunity for the Mayor and Commissioners to actively engage in discussions with our federal representatives to secure permanent relief from onerous LT2 requirements for Portland's open reservoirs and our Bull Run source water.

This new Hypalon-like cover compliance strategy will save ratepayers upwards of $138 million in the near term and much more in the long term when debt service is considered.
Please connect community will to LT2 compliance strategies.

Sincerely,

Stephanie Stewart for Mt. Tabor Neighborhood Association                                       
Jeff Boly for Arlington Heights Neighborhood Association

 

Further Supported By:

Floy Jones for Friends of the Reservoirs

Peter Stark and Barbara Schwartz - Members, Hillside Neighborhood Association Board

Regna Merritt for Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility

Kent Craford for Portland Water Users Coalition Members:

   ALSCO, American Linen Division
   American Property Management
   Ashland Hercules Water Technologies
   The Benson Hotel
   BOMA Portland
   Darigold
   Harsch Investment
   The Hilton Portland and Executive Tower
   Mt. Hood Solutions
   New System Laundry
   Portland Bottling
   SAPA Inc.
   Siltronic Corp.
   Sunshine Dairy Foods
   Vigor Industrial
   Widmer Brothers Brewing
   YoCream

Juliana Lukasik for Central Eastside Industrial Council
Portland Business Alliance
Mayor’s Small Business Advisory Committee
Thomas T. Ward, M.D.
Alissa Keny-Guyer, State Rep District 46
Bob Sallinger for Audubon Society of Portland
Sean Stevens for Oregon Wild
Olivia Schmidt for BARK
Maxine Wilkins & Michael Meo for Eastside Democratic Club
David Delk for Alliance for Democracy
Julie DeGraw for Food & Water Watch
Ron Carley for Coalition for a Livable Future
Andy Maggi for Oregon League of Conservation Voters

Anne Dufay for SE Uplift Neighborhood Coalition:
   North Tabor Neighborhood Association
   Mount Tabor Neighborhood Association
   Montavilla Neighborhood Association
   Sunnyside Neighborhood Association
   Buckman Neighborhood Association
   Hosford Abernathy Neighborhood Association
   Richmond Neighborhood Association
   South Tabor Neighborhood Association
   Foster Powell Neighborhood Association
   Creston - Kenilworth Neighborhood Association
   Brooklyn Neighborhood Association
   Reed Neighborhood Association
   Eastmoreland Neighborhood Association
   Sellwood Moreland Neighborhood Association
   Woodstock Neighborhood Association
   Mount Scott Arleta Neighborhood Association
   Brentwood Darlington Neighborhood Association
   Ardenwald - Johnson Creek Neighborhood Association
   Kerns Neighborhood Association
   Laurelhurst Neighborhood Association

Scott Fernandez for Citizens for Portland's Water
Franklin Gearhart for   Citizens Interested in Bull Run, Inc.               
Nancy Newell for Oregon Green Energy Coalition

Contaminated Water Samples are not limited to Open Reservoirs – Remember May 27, 2012?

All drinking water needs managing, because microbes and objects invariably appear in systems of all makes and models.  Good water managers all over the country are testing multiple parts of their water system everyday because of this basic fact.  I hope this is not a surprise to the average Portlander, but the bacteria detect that happened this week at Washington Park is not an anomaly, not for us and not for any other system in the country.  It isn’t the only detect in our system water managers have dealt with recently (although, it is the only one they’ve reported to the media) and this detect does not warrant adding a lid to the Washington Park reservoirs.   Do you remember May 27, 2012?  Let me help you …

Most people are not aware that Mt. Tabor Park hosts at least one closed water tank in addition to the large open reservoirs you readily see.  This tank features the covered reservoir “technology” the Feds insist is safer for public health.  The Feds are not able to site even one scientific study that draws such a conclusion, rather they assert anecdotally that the intrusion problems they've documented for covered tanks should be worse for open storage tanks.  The anecdotal evidence, along with mounting scientific research, actually suggests the risks are at worst equal.

On May 27, 2012, (that is just 2 months ago) someone broke into the buried tank at Mt. Tabor and dumped in a host of junk including a sealed bottle of Hydrochloric Acid.  You never heard about this did you?  Well, this is a closed tank and reporting this incident would not bolster support for a massive new expenditure, so Water Bureau didn’t report it to the media. (Heck, they didn't even report it to the State's drinking water monitoring program for like a month.  Which is, I'm pretty sure, a violation of the 24 hour rule.)   After all, a covered storage tank can’t be seen as fallible, even if that would be the most realistic opinion to take.  Reservoir 7 was drained, cleaned, and brought back online without a word to the media just as is common practice with detects and intrusions. 

Remember those bright and shiny new buried tanks we’re spending millions and millions to build at Powell Butte, because they supposedly represent the “better” technology over the reservoirs we already own at Tabor?  I wonder how impervious those have actually been.  Oh, yes, with a look at drinking water reports at Oregon Health Authority you can see that their track record is about on par with any other part of the water system = detects happen, and they don’t get reported unless you are trying to convince the public of something else.

Watchdogs worth watching

A new group formed this Fall, and they plan to spotlight wasteful (to the point of illegal) spending by the utlity bureaus.  Interestingly, this group's research and commitment is largely an outgrowth of the movement to protect our water system from a wasteful and useless federal regulation called LT2.  The very well read citizens who have for years combed through Water Bureau documents related to water safety and LT2, have in the process earned an honorary degree in local Water Bureau politics and budgeting practices.  The best read citizens can shock you with what they've found. 

It is a group worth watching: www.waterreform.blogspot.com

Notice - Development at SE 52nd and SE Stark

In February of 2011, MTNA was notified by the new owners of the lot on the Northeast corner of SE 52nd and SE Stark that they plan to subdivide and build three new homes.  MTNA hosted a meeting for the developer and the neighbors of the lot to discuss.  Some surprises came out of this meeting, which took time to resolve.  Fast forward to the present (Fall 2011) and the developer has cleaned up their lot lines and filed for a Land Use Review.  Case File #LU 11-166252 LDP.

Neighbors to the lot submitted responses, largley worried for pedestrian safety and upset that so many large trees would be lost.  The MTNA Land Use Chair submitted a response which you can read here.  Given the structure of this confusing intersection, and the high level of school-aged pedestrian traffic it hosts, it is troubling to imagine 3 new driveways being added within 100' of this intersection.

PolitiFact more “politi” than “fact” today

When (in January 2011) the President ordered the EPA to open its ears, and take public comments regarding its regulatory practices, Portland had an opportunity to shine a new spotlight on EPA’s LT2 regulation and the unnecessary expenditures it forces upon our city. Our City Hall submitted, via lazy online form, a handful of disjointed, poorly crafted paragraphs in which only 3 sentences even mentioned LT2. Compare that with New York City’s response to this opportunity – they submitted over 100 pages, on letterhead, with scientific data detailing the flaws of LT2 and its blunt application across all water systems – and you see in New York a city that defines action.

When (in July 2011) New York City’s meaningful, relentless efforts to extract LT2 reform (and save billions of dollars) manifested an official EPA agreement to review and reform LT2 madness, Portland had an opportunity to freeze all spending on every LT2 related project (Powell Butte tanks, Kelley Butte Tanks, Mt. Tabor disconnect). But they didn’t. Instead, our City Hall allows our Water Bureau to move forward with these projects under the claim that they were “in the long-range plan anyway”. We’ll apparently need them in 50 years; never mind we can’t afford to upkeep them for the next 50 years until we need them; never mind that we already have more storage than we can use even without these new tanks; and never mind that the “long-range plan” from which these source was written 20 years ago, based-on what have become obviously incorrect consumption projections, and that the very Consultant who wrote this “long-range plan” now hopes we’ll stick to it no-matter-what because he’ll make billions on the construction of said projects.

Those citizens that read everything related to this issue know that PolitiFact just plain doesn’t get it, that Portland’s City Hall has NOT contributed meaningfully to this fight since 2009, and that there are more than enough examples of this kind of inept inaction to make even the most polite Portlanders hot under the collar.