The Dalles City Council has its first meeting of the new year last night. Visitors to City Hall discovered something new has been added for the new year. It’s a sad commentary on the times when the city feels the need to add combination locks to the public restrooms in a public building because of problems they have had.
On a more positive note, the council’s agenda included the City Public Works Director Dave Anderson’s report on the updated Dog River pipeline. For more than a hundred years, about half the city’s water supply has come through a 20-inch wooden pipeline from Dog River to the Crow Creek reservoir. The three-and-a-half-mile pipeline was built in 1913. Anderson said he and the city had been working on a replacement since 1995, and it was definitely needed:
01 09 24 Dave 1:06 “Prior to replacement, it was leaking up to about a million gallons a day during the springtime higher flows.”
It turned into a very complicated project, but it had a positive ending.
01 09 24 Dave 2 : “Related to construction, we’ve entered into eight different service, land use or procurement contracts. The city conducted spotted owl surveys along the pipeline route for 11 years. We have over 1,000 pages of permits with six different state and federal agencies. We’ve increased the capacity from about 8 million gallons a day to 15 million gallons a day.”
He said there was about 60 days worth of follow-up work adding some fish passages and cleaning up the site.
Councilors did modify the city’s municipal code on RV parks. The changes included removal of RV parks as a conditional use from residential zoning districts, after several citizen complaints about parks previously approved in those zone. It also updated the application review process and altered the RV park design standards. The changes do not infringe on the ability of citizens to park their own RV on their own property.
Councilors also approved the purchase of backup generators for the city’s water treatment plant and pumping stations. The bulk of the financing comes from a government grant.
And several new city fees increase today as a result of last night’s actions. People loading up with water from the public works department face a sharp increase. Currently, they are charged an access fee of $78.95 fee per month, plus $3.61 per 1,000 gallons of water. So their total cost for the first 1,000 gallons would be $82.56. The new rate schedule eliminates the access fee, and just charges a flat 25 cents per gallon. That first thousand gallons will now cost them $250, three times the current amount. The reason for the increase is that contractors are coming from out of state to get the cheap water, and nearby cities are charging much more. The city of Goldendale, for instance, is charging $1 a gallon, which means a thousand dollars for those thousand gallons.
And while the city has agreed to halt its lawsuit against St. Vincent de Paul in return for the organization shutting down its facility while negotiations take place, there are other resources available for the homeless. City Manager Matthew Klebes noted that Mid-Columbia Community Action Council’s new facility, the Annex, has some additional capacity:
01 09 24 Matthew :15 “They can provide 10 additional overnight beds for those who would be impacted by the winter weather this weekend. MCCAC will also be distributing warming bundles to different partner agencies and directly to individuals who may need assistance.”