EWEB audio stories: Recent Episodes
Rachael
Seventh graders in the Bethel School District put their handmade wind turbines to the test in a wind power challenge supported by EWEB grants on April 27, 2023.
It’s spring-- the time of year when birds are nesting in our trees. EWEB crews take special care to avoid disrupting birds when they’re trimming trees. But tree trimming is a necessary part of delivering safe and reliable power. We went out with a crew to find out how it's done.
As a utility, EWEB is known for providing water and electricity to Eugene residents. But EWEB also operates the largest publicly owned open-access fiber network in Oregon. The infrastructure of underground fiber that connects high-speed internet in downtown Eugene needs to be maintained. Gretchen Lowen is the engineering technician who oversees changes or additions to EWEB’s fiber system.
EWEB 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.
Eugene 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.
EWEB 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.
About a week before the final panel is placed on the 2nd of two water tanks, EWEB invited neighbors to get an inside look.
Eugene 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. One of those careful professionals is Danielle Fisher who runs EWEB’s Water Quality Lab at the Hayden Bridge Water Treatment Plant.
An 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.
The fire swept through the McKenzie River Valley, burning more than 173,000 acres, hundreds of homes, and 25 miles of McKenzie River frontage. The McKenzie is currently the sole source of drinking water for 200,000 people in Eugene. Since the fire, it has been under threat from carbon, nutrients, metals, various chemical contaminants and sediment from burned and eroded slopes entering the river. As the community recovers, EWEB and our Pure Water Partners have been working on watershed protection and restoration projects, including helping people clear out the downed and dead trees and brush to reduce the fuels for a potential future fire.
Lara Colley with McKenzie Watershed Council, which collaborates with EWEB in Pure Water Partners, proposed the firewood program.
EWEB has 800 miles of transmission and distribution lines transporting your drinking water underground throughout the city. It eventually comes out of your tap as delicious thirst-quenching water. But what goes into maintaining all those pipes? And what happens when one gets a leak? We went to find out.
At Alton Baker Park this week, Eugene 4J elementary students bid farewell to baby salmon they’d raised from eggs in their classrooms this fall. The activity was part of the Salmon Education Program funded by EWEB grants.
On a chilly November day, third graders from Adams Elementary School in Eugene learned about the lifecycle of native salmon on a field trip to Lake Creek near Triangle Lake. The field trips take place all month as part of a program funded by EWEB grants. EWEB dedicates a portion of customer rates to inspiring kids to explore the wonders of science and learn about watershed health, water quality, and emergency preparedness.
Hundreds of landowners in the McKenzie River valley are working with EWEB to prevent future fires and protect the river by replanting burned properties an d removing fuels like dead trees and underbrush.
Rep. Nancy Nathanson (District 13) knelt by the slow-moving water of the McKenzie River on a recent Friday. She examined the shaded pools where salmon are now able to rest on their journey to spawn upstream.
Clusters of large, dead trees poke from the surface of the river. The trees slow down the water, allowing particles to settle to the riverbed, rather than wash downstream, where they could clog up EWEB’s water filtration equipment. Just over a year ago, this spot on the river didn’t exist. It’s part of a large-scale restoration project EWEB and partners have undertaken to protect the water of the McKenzie River in the wake of the devastating 2020 Holiday Farm Fire.