
Electric Outage: 1-844-484-2300
Water Emergency: 541-685-7595
EWEB Main: 541-685-7000
EWEB customers use more than twice as much water in the hot, dry summer months, compared to the cold, rainy winter months. The higher summer water use can almost assuredly be attributed to customers watering their lawns and gardens.
Find Out MoreThe Eugene Water & Electric Board (EWEB) is expanding its capacity to provide water to customers in case of an emergency.
Find Out MoreEWEB is already in compliance with a new proposed federal rule that would require municipalities to test for PFAs, or forever chemicals, in drinking water. The good news for EWEB customers is that in over ten years of testing we have not found PFAs in our water.
Find Out MoreThe EWEB Board of Commissioners meet on the first Tuesday of the month.
Find Out MoreTo maintain the reliability customers have come to know and trust, EWEB must address an aging infrastructure bubble.
Find Out MoreEWEB General Manager Frank Lawson delivered his annual State of the Utility Address at the March 7 public Board of Commissioners meeting.
Find Out MoreEugene is one of the largest cities on the west coast with only a single source of drinking water, the McKenzie River. And though the McKenzie is a pure, reliable water source, EWEB will secure a second source ensure resiliency in the future, planning to build a water treatment plant on the Willamette River, upstream of Eugene and Springfield.
Find Out MoreFor the past year, EWEB’s electric division has been preparing for a complete reconstruction of the Currin substation. Quite simply, it’s reached the end of its useful life.
Find Out MoreEWEB is building two 7.5-million-gallon water storage tanks on a 10-acre property at East 40th and Patterson Street in South Eugene. The tanks are part of our work to improve EWEB’s water storage infrastructure for future resiliency to earthquakes and climate change. People who live nearby have been watching the progress of the work since summer 2021.
Find Out MoreGrantees in the McKenzie River Valley can receive up to $35,000 each
Find Out MoreCollaborating with the City of Eugene, a Climate Guidebook, and priorities for upriver EWEB customers were the main topics at the Feb. 7 Board of Commissioners meeting. The five-member Board serves without pay and is elected by EWEB customers. Their job is to establish policies and values and set EWEB’s long-term direction. Board meetings are open to the public and include opportunities for public comment.
Find Out MoreEugene has some of the best drinking water in the world. That’s thanks to our source, the pristine McKenzie River. It’s also thanks to the people at EWEB; whether an engineer designing a new reservoir, a treatment plant operator ensuring the safety and quality of drinking water, or a member of a crew maintaining the infrastructure in our community, water professionals work around the clock to ensure tap water is there when you need it.
Find Out MoreIn January, our elected Board of Commissioners approved an agreement for EWEB to make an unprecedented bulk purchase of substation transformers.
Find Out MoreThe Eugene City Council approved the purchase of EWEB's former riverfront headquarters property at a meeting on Jan. 30. The terms of the deal state that the City of Eugene will purchase the 4.4-acre property, which includes two buildings and parking lots, for $12 million.
Find Out MoreAn EWEB-supported program provides firewood for people affected by the 2020 Holiday Farm Fire. The McKenzie Firewood program was developed by Pure Water Partners (PWP) in 2021.
Find Out MoreJuly 14, 2022
“With over $1 billion in assets at EWEB, how do we know we're working on the right ones?”
That’s how EWEB Chief Operating Officer Karen Kelley opened her presentation to the utility’s elected commissioners at the July 5, 2022 public meeting.
“The answer is planning, and lots of it,” said Karen.
The July meeting kicked off a multi-month planning process that will culminate in December with adoption of a 2023 budget and rates for electric and water customers.
In 2022, residential rates increased for the first time in five years. Looking ahead, a variety of long-term critical projects coupled with short-term supply chain and inflationary pressures and a dynamic power supply market are likely to impact the prices customers pay for water and power.
“We’re starting to see more dynamics in the power supply market driven by climate change, evolving government regulations, and rapidly advancing technology,” said EWEB General Manager Frank Lawson. EWEB buys and sells power on the wholesale market, and those power prices are increasing and becoming more volatile. “They vary by minute, by hour and pretty significantly by season,” said Frank.
The cost for EWEB to purchase power and bring it to Eugene represents a significant portion of the electric utility's budget—almost 40 cents of every dollar in your EWEB bill goes to purchased power costs. We generate around 20 percent of the community's power using EWEB-owned or co-owned resources, and the remaining 80 percent comes from Bonneville Power Administration, other power purchase agreements, and wholesale market purchases. In the 2022 budget, purchased power costs were $21 million higher than the previous year.
Following purchased power costs, the second largest utility expense is electric and water infrastructure investments, which comprise around 20 percent of your total utility bill.
EWEB plans for major infrastructure investments through our Capital Improvement Plan (CIP), a 10-year plan for rehabilitating, replacing, or installing new infrastructure and spreading the costs over many years to avoid having to raise rates significantly in any one year to pay for those improvements.
“The 10-year capital plans are updated annually to meet our customer expectations on the stewardship of their resources,” said Karen Kelley. “We must consider employee and public safety, consequence of equipment failure, probability of failure, current condition and operability, anticipated future condition, customer demand and load both present and future, regulations and compliance, and life cycle costs, all while leaving flexibility to address emergent needs and much, much more.”
To meet the current and future needs of our community and ensure reliable service, some of the projects we are planning and budgeting for include:
Although these are long-term, multi-year projects, the planning work is impacted by current economic conditions. Early projections for next year’s budget indicate $102 million in spending for capital projects, an increase of about $18 million over 2022 projections, primarily due to inflation and supply chain impacts.
The July meeting was the first in a series of public meetings during which your elected Board of Commissioners will provide feedback and direction on spending for major capital projects and potential price changes for customers.
Summer through fall, EWEB staff use direction from the Board to develop a proposed spending budget for the following year. With the exception of funding for large infrastructure projects, EWEB aims to keep rate increases in line with general inflation.
The final budget is adopted in December following public hearings during which our customer-owners are invited to provide testimony on any proposed adjustments. The first public hearing on the upcoming budget is scheduled for Oct. 4, 2022.
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Mailing Address: 4200 Roosevelt Blvd., Eugene, OR 97402
Phone: 541-685-7000
Toll free: 800-841-5871
Email: eweb.answers@eweb.org
Customer service phone hours: 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday - Friday