By the Democrat-Herald | Posted: Tuesday, August 26, 2008 12:00 am
Discussions are continuing between Albany and the city of Adair Village about possibly linking their respective water systems.
The Albany council talked about that and related water issues at a work session Monday. And officials of both towns met in Albany this morning.
Albany is interested in getting an emergency supply in case its only supply line to North Albany is interrupted.
Adair needs a new water treatment plant and also hopes to preserve its largely unused water right of 82 cubic feet per second on the Willamette River. In order to keep the right, it needs to show that the water will be needed in the future.
If the systems were connected, the Adair water right could help meet Albany's water needs in the distant future when all the land in the city is built up.
In the meantime the link would allow Adair to buy water from Albany, saving Adair the cost of revamping its own plant for a while.
Albany, with the old Vine Street treatment plant and a new one on Scravel Hill, has excess treatment capacity, and water sales to Adair would help make use of it.
Or, according to the discussion Monday, Adair and Albany eventually could build a new treatment plant on the Willamette River near Adair's existing intake.
Councilwoman Sharon Konopa raised objections to such grand plans, saying she feared that Albany residents would again be forced to pay higher water rates. She suggested that it would be futile for Albany and Adair to go to a lot of trouble securing Adair's large water right because one of these days the legislature would rewrite water law.
The connection between Albany and Adair would require construction of about 1,500 feet of 12-inch pipe near Ryals Avenue west of North Albany, along with related pumps.
None of the discussions have touched on what any of this would cost, who would pay, or when decisions would be reached.