News
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
A3
Grants, loans to fund Mt. Vernon upgrades
Major face-lift
for Phil Boyd
Memorial Park
By Richard Hanners
Blue Mountain Eagle
Residents in Mt. Vernon
will see construction crews
in 2018 as two successful
grant applications are put to
work improving both the city
wastewater system and Phil
Boyd Memorial Park.
The city lined up $2.5
million to address inflow
and infiltration problems in
its sewer collection system,
according to City Recorder
Tami Kowing. That includes
a $2 million Community
Development Block Grant
and a $225,000 grant and a
$225,000 loan from the Or-
egon Infrastructure Finance
Authority. HECO Engineer-
ing of Payette, Idaho, is head-
ing up the project.
“HECO ran video cameras
in the pipes a couple months
ago to identify problem ar-
eas,” Kowing said.
The city has 525 residents
and about 275 sewer hook-
ups. Mt. Vernon Mayor Ken-
ny Delano said the city’s sew-
er collection system is “not
relatively old” and is made of
PVC pipe, but some under-
ground pipes may be broken,
allowing groundwater to en-
ter. Some areas in Mt. Vernon
experience high groundwater
when flood irrigation takes
place outside of town, but the
problem is still under investi-
gation.
The first phase of the proj-
ect also will include replacing
influent flow meters and con-
trol valves between the treat-
ment plant’s four cells. The
facility, which was initially
constructed in 1979, was de-
signed to discharge effluent
into the John Day River, but
the plant never discharged
into the river because lagoon
seepage and evaporation rates
exceeded influent flow vol-
ume, according to the Oregon
Department of Environmental
Quality.
The city submitted a report
on groundwater effects by
the sewage system in 2005,
and DEQ evaluated the city’s
wastewater permit in 2009 and
2011. DEQ reported in 2011
that leakage into groundwater
“was in the normal range for
bentonite-lined lagoons and
that the John Day River and
groundwater was not impact-
ed.” DEQ concluded in 2011
that “no further groundwater
investigation is required by
the proposed permit.”
Since then, however, la-
goon leakage has worsened,
according to a Business Or-
egon press release announc-
Eagle file photo
Paige Wolffe-Cloud and Ellen Wolffe-Cloud trade candy
they collected at a past Cinnabar Mountain Rendezvous
parade at the Mt. Vernon park. The park will get a face-lift,
thanks to a state grant.
ing the Community Devel-
opment Block Grant award
to Mt. Vernon in November
2016. Tests found that “the
lagoons may be leaking with
subsurface flow to the riv-
er even though the city does
not indicate that discharge is
happening,” Business Oregon
reported.
Kowing said the current
sewer project will focus on
inflow and infiltration, but a
later project will look at the
sewage lagoons themselves.
Park
improvements
Mt. Vernon’s 60-year-
old city park will get a
much-needed face-lift thanks
to a $162,000 grant from the
Oregon Parks and Recreation
Department.
The city will provide a
$43,000 match in the form of
volunteer hours and equip-
ment and money from the
city’s Street, Sewer and Wa-
ter funds, bringing the total
cost to rehabilitate Phil Boyd
Memorial Park to more than
$200,000.
It was a competitive grant,
Kowing told the Eagle, and
she traveled to Salem to pres-
ent the city’s application. Mt.
Vernon ended up ranked fifth
out of 15 Oregon communi-
ties vying for $4.5 million in
money from the Oregon Lot-
tery.
Kowing explained in the
city’s application that Phil
Boyd Memorial Park “is one
of the first sights that travelers
see when entering Mt. Ver-
non from the east.” She said
the park was “in desperate
need of rehabilitating” and
hadn’t seen renovations to its
playground equipment in 60
years. The park “is beyond its
normal life expectancy” and
did not meet health and safety
code requirements, she said.
The city surveyed resi-
dents to gather suggestions
and park usage information,
and the city’s parks commit-
tee is still determining how to
spend the grant money, Kow-
ing said.
Two thousand or more vis-
itors use Phil Boyd Memorial
Park through the year, includ-
ing for events like the Cinna-
bar Mountain Rendezvous,
Mt. Vernon Rural Fire Depart-
ment Easter Egg Hunt, birth-
day parties, weddings, family
reunions, picnics and class re-
unions. It also serves as a rest
stop for tourists, Kowing said.
The 1.47-acre park in-
cludes a basketball court,
tennis court, horseshoe pits,
gazebo, ADA-approved re-
strooms, barbecue pits, play-
ground equipment and open
space with trees and bushes.
The city plans to install ad-
ditional lighting and recepta-
cles, upgrade the stairway on
the highway side of the park,
relocate the horseshoe pits
and install new picnic bench-
es, a flag pole and a drinking
fountain. The big ticket items
include $13,000 for automat-
ed underground sprinklers,
$22,000 for drainage and
$141,476 for new playground
equipment.
“Most of the money will
pay for the new playground
equipment,” Kowing told the
Eagle.
The older metal play-
ground equipment will be re-
placed with natural-looking
plastic that will last longer
and not be hot to the touch
in summer. The city typically
spends about $25,000 per year
to maintain the park. The new
LED lighting and irrigation
system will reduce water and
power usage, Kowing said.
“The city takes pride in
the upkeep of our city park
and will continue to keep up
our excellent maintenance re-
cord,” Kowing said.
Projects slated for Prairie City Seneca begins planning
June storm
for infrastructure funding
damaged water
Projects could
take three years
to complete
system
By Richard Hanners
Blue Mountain Eagle
Several infrastructure proj-
ects are slated for Prairie City
in the coming year, Mayor
Jim Hamsher told the Eagle. A
$1.8 million sewer main proj-
ect will address cracked pipes
identified by remote video,
and well improvements will
address water shortage prob-
lems experienced this past
summer.
The sewer project will go
to bid soon, Hamsher said.
Work will begin along High-
way 26 west of town, where
a force main has been leak-
ing. The city’s wastewater
is pumped over a rise to the
city’s lagoons, he said.
Additional work will be
done around town to eliminate
infiltration, which takes place
in spring when groundwater is
high. The goal is to reduce the
cost of pumping the addition-
al water that enters the pipes
— first out to the lagoons and
again to the spray irrigation
system, Hamsher said.
A June 26 storm in Prairie
City not only uprooted trees
that crashed into houses and
vehicles — lightning struck
near the city’s No. 2 well,
damaging electronics that
controlled the water system.
A crew was in the process of
investigating the well with
video when the storm hit.
By Richard Hanners
Blue Mountain Eagle
Contributed photo
A tree in Prairie City uprooted by a windstorm June 26.
The city already had con-
cerns about water produc-
tion from its three wells in
summertime, and the storm
damage just made the prob-
lem worse. Residents were
asked to cut back on irriga-
tion during the summer, and
the city council gave Hamsh-
er the authority to declare an
emergency if the water supply
reached a critical level.
The council wanted to en-
sure sufficient water existed
for fire protection. The restric-
tions were lifted in October.
Hamsher said an engineer
addressed the city council in
December. The city’s water
master plan will be updated,
and plans are being developed
to either rehabilitate well No.
2, which has casing problems,
or to drill well No. 3 deeper.
He said the city is also updat-
ing its water ordinance, in-
cluding fees for overages. He
said the ordinance hasn’t seen
a revision in a long time.
Meanwhile, cleanup work
continues at the former Prai-
rie Wood Products sawmill
west of town, which closed in
2008. Crews continue to bury
potash at the site, which will
later be replanted, Hamsher
said. There are no plans to
scrap out the steel buildings,
with hopes they will one day
be put back to use, he said.
Hamsher said there are no
immediate plans for the city’s
parks. Prairie City is home to
three countywide events — a
Fourth of July parade and fire-
works, the Kruzers Car Show
in August and Christmas on
the Prairie in December.
Significant infrastructure
improvements in Seneca
could be completed in the
next three years, according
to Assistant City Manager
Raamin Burrell — includ-
ing sewer, water, roads,
parks and broadband.
Seneca will get a whole
new sewage collection and
treatment system. The $3.5
million project will be fi-
nanced with a $2.5 million
Community Development
Block Grant and a $500,000
grant and a $500,000 loan
from the Oregon Infrastruc-
ture Finance Authority,
Burrell said.
Planning for the project
began in 2012 but was de-
layed until the city became
eligible for funding assis-
tance. Sewer rates began to
increase slowly three years
ago so the city could take on
the debt needed to get the
project completed, she said.
Seneca has about 160
permanent residents and
130 to 140 active water and
sewer hook-ups. Much of
the sewer collection system
was built before the city
was incorporated in 1970,
Burrell said.
“It’s a mish-mash of
different kinds of pipes, in-
cluding asbestos cement,”
she said.
The new sewer plant will
include a two-cell facula-
tive wastewater treatment
lagoon system built on the
west side of the Silvies
River. Burrell said staff at
HECA Engineers of Pay-
ette, Idaho, are still study-
ing whether to run sewer
pipes over the river or bor-
ing under the river. The cur-
rent treatment plant on the
east side of the river eventu-
ally will be dismantled and
removed.
HECA crews are also
measuring the collection
system throughout the city
in preparation for putting
the project out to bid. Bur-
rell said the new treatment
plant would be constructed
first, beginning next year.
Additional infrastructure
work will take place while
the city’s streets are torn up,
including replacing water
lines.
“Some of the water lines
are older than the sewer
lines,” Burrell said.
The city had lined up a
state Special City Allotment
Program grant to repave
Seneca’s older streets but
delayed the repaving until
after other work was com-
pleted, she said.
Fiber cable also will be
run underground to homes
and businesses in town
while the streets are torn
up. Funding for that work
will come from the $1.8
million provided to John
Day by the legislature for a
new broadband network in
Grant County, Burrell said.
Seneca, John Day and Grant
County have signed on to a
coalition to manage the net-
work.
Seneca is also lining up
grant money for a new fire
station. The current facil-
ity is attached to city hall
and provides barely enough
space for Seneca’s two “an-
cient” pumper trucks, she
said. The city’s three new-
er fire apparatus are out of
action during the winter
because there’s no heat-
ed place to keep them, she
said.
The city has been pre-ap-
proved for a U.S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture Rural
Development grant, which
can be used to line up addi-
tional grants for a new fire
station with three bays for
the newer equipment, Bur-
rell said.
Seneca is also looking
for grants to pay for a new
gazebo at the city park. The
last one was torn down soon
after the annual oyster feed
in late May this year.
“We hold the oyster feed
rain or shine,” Burrell said.
“We hope to build a larger
building that could be tem-
porarily enclosed during
bad weather.”
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