
Electric Outage: 1-844-484-2300
Water Emergency: 541-685-7595
EWEB Main: 541-685-7000
EWEB will continue the annual closure of our College Hill Reservoir over the Fourth of July holiday and prohibit fireworks on the property grounds.
Find Out MoreOn June 18, with the help of community neighbors, EWEB inaugurated a new emergency water station at the Lane County Fairgrounds.
Find Out MoreEWEB exceeded drinking water safety standards in 2021 for every type of contaminant regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Oregon Health Authority. The utility has never failed to meet the standards.
Find Out MoreAs a public utility, it is important EWEB check in with customers to see how we are performing. We invite you to share your feedback and opinions.
Find Out MoreAs a public utility, owned by the people of Eugene, it’s important for us to be open and transparent with our customer-owners. The following State of the Utility Address, delivered by General Manager Frank Lawson at the March 1 EWEB Board meeting, highlights key events, accomplishments and challenges of 2021.
Find Out MoreCommunity organizations, property developers and others will soon be able to submit offers to purchase and develop a 4.44-acre site in a prime location along Eugene’s burgeoning downtown waterfront district.
Find Out MoreEugene’s drinking water received an outstanding performance rating from the Oregon Health Authority.
Find Out MoreEWEB’s five commissioners earlier this month voted to elect John Brown as president of the Board and Sonya Carlson as vice president.
Find Out MoreWhile world leaders debate climate action, EWEB reflects on our community's climate successes
Find Out MoreEWEB Leads "Spill Drill" to test HazMat Response
Find Out MoreHave you ever thought about where your drinking water comes from? What about where your wastewater goes?
Find Out MoreEWEB helps fund floodplain restoration project
Find Out MoreThe security of the community's water supply is tied directly to the health of the McKenzie Watershed and EWEB is investing in the long-term health and quality of life for residents for generations to come.
Find Out MoreA year after the Holiday Farm Fire, EWEB and the Pure Water Partners are working with landowners in the burn zone to restore riparian forests and mitigate future fires.
Find Out MoreAs climate change increases the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, Eugene Water & Electric Board is serious about making the necessary investments to ensure we can provide safe and reliable water and electricity.
Find Out MoreEWEB Commissioners joined Eugene City Council members and local leaders for a tour of McKenzie River restoration projects, coordinated by EWEB’s Source Water Protection team and our amazing collaborators at McKenzie Watershed Council (MWC), McKenzie River Trust (MRT), and the Willamette National Forest.
The tour focused on the coordinated response to the Holiday Farm Fire, emphasizing the effectiveness of large-scale floodplain enhancement projects for mitigating the impacts of sedimentation and increasing water temperatures.
Tour highlights included stops at Finn Rock Reach and the McKenzie River/South Fork of the McKenzie confluence. At these sites, EWEB, Willamette National Forest, McKenzie River Trust and McKenzie Watershed Council have installed massive projects aiming to restore the river to “Stage 0” conditions, referring to rivers’ natural tendencies to meander throughout a valley floor, to flood wetlands, to send water below the soils in some places (called “hyporheic flow”), and to slow down flows behind obstructions like logjams.
Rivers throughout the world have lost these natural conditions due to pressures from development, as we have altered and managed rivers to protect riverside infrastructure like roads and homes, and due to logging and mining. When the rivers lose their connection to the floodplain and are forced into a single channel, this creates a "firehose effect." The water loses the ability to spread out into the floodplain where the water slows down and drops out sediment and contaminants. Instead, the water flows through the channel at high speeds, carrying sediment and potential contaminants downstream where they can have huge impacts on personal property and infrastructure like roads and our water treatment plant.
By restoring Stage 0 floodplains throughout the McKenzie watershed, EWEB and our partners are restoring river and floodplain functionality to be a first line of defense against threats to drinking water quality. A healthier river can also slow down and store water/larger flow events, provide a haven for wildlife during fire event, and buffer metals, sediment and nutrient loads, and hazardous materials – reducing the work required of our treatment facility.
These projects also create new habitat for endangered salmon, bull trout, Pacific lamprey, and other species, empowering our watershed to protect itself against environmental stressors. In fact, in the first seasons after these projects were completed, redd (salmon nest) counts increased by as much as 20-fold!
“Thanks to all the people who are doing this incredible work, we are restoring and improving the watershed from hundreds of years of human impact,” EWEB Commissioner Sonya Carlson said after the tour. “Getting as close as we can to the natural flow of the waterway clearly has meaningful impact on the native species, our resiliency, and water quality.”
The Commissioners’ tour also visited the Finn Rock Boat landing, where the McKenzie River Trust is fundraising for major improvements, the confluence of Quartz Creek and the McKenzie River, where EWEB and partners are planning another floodplain enhancement project, as well as the former home of Barry Lopez. Lopez, an environmental author who was called a “modern day Thoreau,” lived on and wrote about the McKenzie River for 50 years. He passed away in December of 2020, but now his home serves as a writing retreat and a meeting place for the river conservation community.
Throughout the day, EWEB Commissioners, staff, and partners emphasized how these projects are possible thanks to the collaborative, multi-organizational approach to protecting our watershed and drinking water quality.
We are fortunate to have some of the cleanest drinking water in the country and EWEB's Source Water Protection Program is working to keep it that way. The program's successful track record over two decades enables us to collaborate with McKenzie valley landowners, leverage the diverse expertise of watershed partners, and attract funding support from state and federal sources while setting a national example of watershed protection.
4200 Roosevelt Blvd.
Eugene, OR 97402
800-841-5871
541-685-7000
Open Monday-Friday
Phone hours: 9 a.m. - 6:30 p.m.