Category: News

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Bend drinking water wins best tasting award

Bend’s water was awarded first prize at the Annual Best Tasting Water Contest held by the Pacific Northwest’s Cascade to Coast subsection of the American Water Works Association.

The water sample from the City of Bend, taken from the City’s surface water source springs, won first place this year with a score of 95 out of 120 points. A number of factors contribute to the taste of tap water, including its source, treatment process, pipes and reservoirs. Judges, after a blind taste test, rated water samples based on odor, flavor, and aftertaste. Bend’s water was described as “clean, crisp, and grassy,” with a “nice aftertaste.”

The four judges included a brewery owner, a winemaker, a water analysis systems company official, and a former National Football League fullback. Thirteen water utilities submitted samples to compete for the title on Feb. 16, 2012, in Eugene. Contestants followed strict guidelines for collecting and storing water samples. This was the fifth year of the competition.

As winner of this year’s contest, the City of Bend is eligible to compete for the Pacific Northwest Section title of Best Tasting Water May 2-4 in Yakima, WA.

The Bend Public Works Department plans to improve the surface water infrastructure to provide continued access to cost effective, clean, and reliable drinking water for Bend residents and businesses now and for the future. More information about the Surface Water Improvement project is available online: www.bendoregon.gov/surfacewater.

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Bend Transportation & Transit Planning

The Oregon Transportation and Growth Management Program (TGM) provides local governments with funding for planning projects that lead to more livable, economically vital, transportation-efficient, sustainable, pedestrian-friendly communities.  The grant awarded to the Bend MPO will be used to update the long-range transit plans for the City of Bend Transportation System Plan (TSP) and the MPO Metropolitan Transportation Plan.

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Mirror Pond dredging debated

Momentum is swinging toward putting a bond before voters in November to fund the dredging of Bend’s Mirror Pond.

Friday, members of the Mirror Pond Management Board met to consider options for cleaning the pond, which has been filling with sediment since it was last dredged 28 years ago. Until recently, the board had been leaning toward commissioning a study to determine how to address the sedimentation problem, and possibly creating a special taxing district that could provide a long-term funding stream for upkeep of the pond.

After Friday’s meeting, the board is now moving in the direction of a dredge-first, ask-questions-later approach.

Dredging will inevitably be part of cleaning up Mirror Pond, members indicated, and the public is unlikely to be willing to foot the bill for further study.

“I don’t see the public supporting a study — just a study alone,” said board member and Bend City Councilor Tom Greene. “They want results.”

A steering committee assembled by the board concluded that dredging should come before an extensive study. A comprehensive study would cost about $500,000, and none of the organizations represented on the board — including the city, Bend Park & Recreation District, Pacific Power and Bill Smith Properties — are willing to provide the funding.

Parks District director Don Horton said it’s not clear how much public support there is for a bond or a taxing district. To find out, the park district will include questions about the project on a soon-to-be-conducted survey of residents.

In the meantime, Bend community development director Mel Oberst will be directing his staff to develop better estimates of the cost of dredging, and to research the extent of federal and state permitting that would be required.

Current cost estimates for dredging the pond are between $2 million and $5 million. The last dredging in 1984 was performed for $312,000.

Not all members of the board are committed to the new direction. Ryan Houston, executive director of the Upper Deschutes Watershed Council, cautioned that board members could be “shooting ourselves in the foot” by proceeding with dredging ahead of a thorough study. A dredging that fails to take into account how water moves through the area could result in the pond silting up soon after the work is completed, he said, requiring additional costly measures.

Unless measures are taken to remove the silt from the pond, it is believed the river will eventually recede to a narrow channel lined by swampy shallows on either side. Horton said the area just upstream of the Colorado Avenue bridge, an area that was once routinely dredged when it served as a log storage pond, is a good model of what an unaltered Mirror Pond might look like in 50 years.

Source: The Bulletin

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Miller’s Landing meeting January 31

An open house to discuss the Miller’s Landing Park will take place January 31 in the community room of the Bend Parks & Recreation District Office.

The event will take place from 5:30 pm to 7 pm, and is the third open house to discuss the park project. The district is developing the park’s master plan and is seeking public input.

Park district staff presented a summary of the questionnaire results and public meeting input at a September board meeting. The district staff then created three park concepts that incorporated public comments, board input, and site conditions.

These concepts were presented at a second open house meeting on October 13th.  The drawings are available here:

For more information, visit Miller’s Landing.

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Committee: Dredge Mirror Pond

First things first: Mirror Pond needs to be dredged. At least that’s what the people studying the sedimentation problem in the pond say.

Initially, officials wanted to analyze a range of possible fixes to the silt problem in Mirror Pond that included everything from doing nothing to removing two dams and allowing the Deschutes River to flow freely.

After learning that such a study would cost $500,000 and that no one was willing to pay for it, the steering committee created to guide this effort shifted its focus.

“Something has to be done to remove the sediment immediately, regardless of what we do in the long term,” said Matt Shinderman, who sits on the committee and is an Oregon State University-Cascades Campus natural resources instructor. “It’s already starting to get to a point where you’re going to have extensive mudflats and potential wetland vegetation coming in.”

Once that vegetation takes root, he said, it could become a lot more difficult to do any work in the pond, because federal wetland protections create more regulatory hurdles.

Silt has been accumulating at the bottom of Mirror Pond ever since Pacific Power & Light Co. built a hydroelectric dam near the Newport Avenue bridge in 1910. The last time it was dredged was in 1984, at a cost of $312,000.

The latest cost estimates for dealing with the pond’s sediment problem came in between $2 million and $5 million. Those figures were from a 2009 study.

As with the $500,000 alternatives analysis, no one has offered to pay for dredging Mirror Pond. The group looking into the issue includes the city of Bend, the Bend Park & Recreation District, Pacific Power, William Smith Properties Inc. and the nonprofit Bend 2030.

Two funding ideas have been floated recently. One is to form a permanent special taxing district. The other is to include a Mirror Pond fix in a one-time bond measure. In either case, it would be up to voters to decide.

Bend Park & Recreation District Executive Director Don Horton said the district is planning a survey that will ask residents if they would support either option for Mirror Pond. That survey, which is also gauging support for other possible bond measure projects, is expected to be sent out in a couple of weeks.

Horton noted that a bond measure would only provide a one-time source of funds, while a taxing district would supply money long-term. Like Shinderman, he said the immediate need is to dredge Mirror Pond first.

But Horton also highlighted the importance of an in-depth siltation study that would look at dam removal options and others — such as reconfiguring the shape of the pond — that would help cut down on the sedimentation.

“It’s kind of a two-stage process,” he said. “The first is to dredge the pond, and the second is to do a longer-term study of what needs to be done to the pond.”

— Reporter: 541-633-2160, ngrube@bendbulletin.com

Source: The Bulletin