The Hermiston City Council approved a Memorandum of Understanding with the Oregon State University Experiment Station designed to provide economic benefits to both parties Monday night.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) outlines the terms in which service from the Regional Water System will be extended to the experiment station after it is annexed into the city limits.
The city of Hermiston will construct a water main from the Regional System’s water treatment plant on Highway 207 eastward along Feedville Road approximately 1.5 miles to serve the experiment station property. The research station will then have access to Hermiston water from the Regional System for at least five years to be used to irrigate crops at the facility. The revenue received from the water delivered to the station will help offset the $1.25 million cost of extending the line, which gets this secondary water source within 300 feet of the Cook Industrial Site.
The city will then have the ability, after five years, to extend the additional water capacity to prospective companies which locate at the Cook Industrial Site. Assistant City Manager Mark Morgan said the additional water capacity will make the Cook Industrial Site more attractive to certain industrial developments, and therefore has the potential of attracting large-scale investment and employers to Hermiston.
Hermiston City Manager Ed Brookshier said the city currently does not have the ability to provide water to a large-scale industry looking to locate in Hermiston.
“That area is still where we have our least water delivery capabilities,” Brookshier told the council Monday. “It would be pretty well impossible to serve a significant water user right now in that location.”
Brookshier said extending water service to the site was part of the plan all along, but only now does it make financial sense.
“The only reason this line was not built at the time that we built the Regional Water System was simply that we didn’t feel like we had the money to do it,” he said. “Even then, we understood all along the proper approach to the development of the water system was to take a line from the Regional Water System along Feedville easterly and connect it back into the city water system at what we refer to as the Cook Industrial Site. The intent all along had been to loop our ownership of the Regional Water System back into the city’s main system in the south of town.”
Brookshier said another benefit of extending the line to allow the experiment station to access city water is it will have the effect of lowering water rates for other large-scale users such as the two co-generating plants. The timing is right for the city, as well, said Brookshier.
“We’re about to issue debt for the Regional Water System project anyway and it’s easier to piggy back on that than it would be to do a separate issue,” he said. “It only makes sense, given the opportunity the regional water plant represents, to couple it with that.”
But in order to have access to the water once the service is extended out, the OSU Experiment Station will have to be annexed into the city limits. Under the agreement, the experiment station will be responsible for all necessary piping and facilities to deliver water to its land. The city will also charge the experiment station for water use at the same rate as all other users of non-potable water on the Regional Water System.
Also at Monday’s meeting, the city approved rate increases for city water and sewer users. By July 2015, the rates will have increased by 16 percent, but the council voted Monday night to raise them incrementally. The rates will go up 4 percent in January 2014, July 2014, January 2015 and July 2015. The original plan was to have the rates go up 8 percent in July 2014 and July 2015.
Also Monday, the council approved an ordinance that expands the membership of the Parks and Recreation Committee from five to seven. There are now four openings on the committee – the two new seats as well as two existing openings. The city is taking applications for the vacancies through November.
The council also approved Ron Linn to serve on the Airport Advisory Committee.
