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The 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 MoreAt EWEB, we do what we can to help others in need. That’s been the reality for several of our electric and water crews over the past few weeks as we’ve responded to mutual aid requests for storm response and drinking water restoration, locally, and out of state.
Find Out MoreAfter evaluating several proposals and opportunities, EWEB is focusing its negotiations to sell the former riverfront headquarters property to the City of Eugene. The exact terms and details of the deal will be negotiated during the next few weeks.
Find Out MoreDespite an ice storm and a few windstorms in Eugene and the McKenzie Valley in the past few weeks, EWEB has so far fended off widespread weather-caused power outages – largely because of investments in year-round system maintenance and infrastructure improvements.
Find Out MoreThe EWEB Board of Commissioners started off their first meeting of 2023 by choosing a new board president and vice president.
Find Out MoreCommissioners unanimously voted to approve a Record of Decision endorsing the General Manager's Recommendation to decommission the Leaburg Hydroelectric Project and approved Resolution 2302 directing the GM to develop a Leaburg Hydroelectric Project Decommissioning Action Plan
Find Out MoreEWEB is developing a plan to ensure that Eugene has a sufficient supply of reliable, affordable and clean electricity in the decades ahead, and is inviting the community to participate in the process.
Find Out MoreEWEB has joined 10 other Western utilities are to help ensure clean energy resources will be adequate to serve the growing demand in the region, while also managing costs and maintaining reliability for customers.
Find Out MoreCommissioners supportive of General Manager's recommendation to remove Leaburg Dam
Find Out MoreIn the years ahead, EWEB will have to make a lot of decisions about where to get the electricity that we deliver to customers.
Find Out MoreFor EWEB, preparing for harsh winter storms is a year-round responsibility. While we can’t control the weather, we can make our electric infrastructure more resilient to withstand storms that bring snow, ice and wind to Eugene.
Find Out MoreAt the Nov. 1st board meeting, EWEB Commissioners got an update on the budget and rates for next year and the EWEB quarterly report.
Find Out MoreThere’s no obvious right answer to the question of what to do about the Leaburg dam and canal. EWEB’s Board of Commissioners met this week for a work session with staff about the project.
Find Out MoreBy partnering with ShakeAlert and the Oregon Hazards Lab, EWEB gets an early warning of the effects of earthquakes on hydropower facilities.
Find Out MoreEWEB held its Poster Contest for 5th grade students in our service territory for Public Power Week, October 2-8, receiving more than 100 entries from classrooms across the area.
Find Out MoreDecember 08, 2022
For their final meeting of 2022, on Dec. 6, the EWEB Board of Commissioners grappled with some major decisions and looked ahead to a new year.
2023 Budget and Prices
The Board approved the 2023 budget and prices. The updated rates increase the basic charge by $2.24 per month for electricity and $1.26 for water. Beginning in February 2023, the average household will pay around $8 more per month, or 27 cents per day, for electricity and water combined.
Commissioners described how the rate increase is necessary to pay for vitally important projects in the years ahead, including a second water treatment plant on the Willamette River that will bolster EWEB’s resiliency to disasters. But commissioners also acknowledged that rising rates and other expenses can create a burden for some customers.
“I know that during the last five years, we’ve done a lot to keep rates down,” Commissioner Sonya Carlson said. “Eight dollars doesn’t seem like a lot to many, but it is a lot to some. So, I definitely want to make sure we keep supporting the low-income programs and continue to do the good work we’re doing to keep the rates down.”
Future rates will also be impacted by the likely decommissioning of the Leaburg Hydroelectric Project, as well as ongoing efforts to maintain and improve EWEB’s distribution systems for both electricity and water.
“Nobody likes to be the person who votes to raise prices and many things are increasing in price these days,” Commissioner John Barofsky said. He also pointed out that EWEB charges less than other utilities.
2023 Legislative Agenda
In 2023, the Oregon Legislature will meet for its long session in Salem. EWEB’s policy and intergovernmental affairs director Jason Heuser told commissioners he has two main priorities for the session. The first priority relates to a 2021 Oregon Supreme Court decision (WaterWatch of Oregon v. the Water Resources Department (WRD) and Warm Springs Hydro LLC) that threatens to revoke water rights for hydropower projects when those rights are not used for their intended purposes for more than five years. The ruling affects EWEB because the Leaburg project has not been generating since 2018 – putting the water rights associated with it at risk.
“The first of our two priorities is getting a legislative remedy for a Supreme Court decision almost a year ago which effectively put a five-year shot clock on hydroelectric water rights,” Heuser said.
EWEB is building a coalition to petition the legislature to implement a clearer set of standards that would meet the goals of both environmental groups and utilities. Environmental groups don’t want “zombie” hydroelectric projects holding onto old water rights. And utilities, which are closely regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), don’t want to lose water rights when their projects are undergoing licensing actions with FERC.
Thankfully, Heuser pointed out, there is significant middle ground to meet both groups’ goals.
The second priority is to seek state matching funds for EWEB’s second water source on the Willamette River. Heuser said lawmakers could provide money from the general fund, lottery dollars or from the American Rescue Plan Act. He said water infrastructure is a qualified use for those funds.
Leaburg Hydroelectric Project
General Manager Frank Lawson presented the staff recommendation to permanently discontinue generation at the Leaburg Hydroelectric project. The recommendation comes after two years of in-depth analyses and extensive public outreach. This would result in removal of the Leaburg dam, “restoring the McKenzie River to unobstructed flow and eliminating the human-made Leaburg Lake behind the dam,” Lawson said.
EWEB commissioners voiced support for the recommendation. Lawson will prepare a “Record of Decision” for the Board to vote on at their January meeting. If approved, EWEB will begin an extensive regulatory process that will take years to complete. Actual removal of the dam would not occur until the 2030s.
Read more about the Leaburg recommendation.
EWEB Headquarters
The sale of the former EWEB riverfront headquarters building wasn’t on the agenda for the Dec. 6 meeting, but early in the evening, the Board had a short discussion spurred by public comment. A group of Eugene area residents have asked the Board to delay the sale of the building for 18 months while they work to form a group that could submit a detailed plan to buy the building.
The sale of the former headquarters building by the Willamette River near downtown Eugene has been discussed for years and EWEB developed and launched a request for proposals (RFP) process in 2022 to solicit proposals from potential buyers.
After the initial requests for proposals didn’t generate any options that met the criteria set out by the EWEB Board, the Board directed General Manager Frank Lawson to take on negotiations with interested buyers. During the meeting, Lawson assured the Board he would take community value as well as economics into consideration when negotiating the sale.
Commissioners agreed that additional delay in what’s already been a long process isn’t a good idea.
“We’ve made it clear we want to have some kind of community benefit,” Commissioner Mindy Schlossburg said. “I appreciate that you will come to us with any offers just for transparency for us. Continue down road we already started.”
Commissioner John Brown said, “If we have a buyer in hand, we should seriously consider it because we have some pretty big things in front of us and real estate isn’t one of them.”
Integrated Resource Plan
Lawson noted that the initial public draft of EWEB’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) has been officially published. The IRP forecasts EWEB’s electricity needs for the next two decades and assesses which energy resources – wind, solar, hydropower, batteries and others – might best meet those needs.
Analysis will continue from January to June of 2023, when a final draft will be published. Now, EWEB is starting on an extensive public engagement process to hear what questions the community has about the draft IRP. EWEB will try to answer those questions through more analysis.
Though the draft, including appendices, is 79 pages long, it features shorter, digestible summaries that readers can absorb in just a few minutes.
“The way it's framed is going to help us have conversations with the community,” said Commissioner Matt McRae.
Wrapping up 2022
At the end of the 3.5-hour meeting, Lawson thanked the Board for a good year. “Your engagement and your care of the community is noted and appreciated by staff,” Lawson said. “I think we got a lot accomplished. We look forward to coming back in 2023 and getting more done next year.”
Commissioner Sonya Carlson, who serves as vice president of the board, thanked Board President John Brown, who was attending the meeting remotely, for his leadership over the past year.
The EWEB Board of Commissioners is an elected board which serves on a voluntary basis. Their monthly meetings are open to the public both online and in person.
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