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Going green

The new facility, which will be built at Roosevelt Boulevard and Beltline Road, will replace the 53-year-old “Quonset hut” operations building, vehicle shop, warehouse and other run-down facilities on EWEB’s riverfront site in downtown Eugene. EWEB’s administrative staff will remain in the existing headquarters building along the Willamette River.

Currently in the design stage, the new facility also will take on a “green” flavor with a number of energy and water efficiency measures that will meet some of the highest “LEED” standards set by the U.S. Green Building Standards Council (LEED stands for Leadership in Energy Efficient Design). Among other things, the new facility is being designed to reclaim and reuse nearly all waste water and storm water produced on the site.

When completed as early as mid-2009, the new facilities will culminate nearly two decades of planning by EWEB on an eventual replacement for its aging electric and water operations buildings and storage yard. The existing non-headquarters facilities were built in the 1950s and have outlived their useful life.

“These new facilities will serve EWEB well into our next century with a modern, efficient and environmentally friendly operations center,” says Ken Beeson, who is EWEB’s project manager for the new facilities. “As the community grows, we need to be able to continue EWEB’s commitment to provide reliable power and water, to respond quickly when outages occur, and to be a leader in the efficient use of our energy and water resources.”

Next spring, a final design and cost estimate will be completed. Commissioners then will decide how to finance the new facility, as well as make any final decisions on the design and the timetable for constructing the operations center. Construction will require a small rate increase of approximately 2 percent, according to preliminary cost estimates.

As Beeson sees it, the new facility will meet high standards for efficient operations, sustainability and fiscal responsibility, “without sacrificing one over the other.”

“EWEB has always been a leader in these three qualities, and we want to again lead the community and show how an industrial site like this can be developed in a way that will inspire others to do the same.”