The Bend City Council is scheduled to vote today on whether to pay the U.S. Forest Service’s costs to review the latest city water proposal for a $20 million Bridge Creek water intake facility and pipeline project. Authorization to spend up to $55,684 more on the Forest Service review is one of a bundle of items the City Council will consider in the consent agenda.
The city already submitted a modified application to the Forest Service on Dec. 5. On Tuesday, the Forest Service withdrew its previous decision to issue a special use permit for the city project in order to consider the latest application. City officials announced in mid-November that they would scale back a previous plan approved by the Forest Service, after a federal judge halted the project while considering a legal challenge to it. The previous Forest Service environmental review cost the city $81,800, according to a city staff report. That plan would have allowed the city to take up to 21 cubic feet of water per second from Bridge Creek and Tumalo Creek, an increase from the current city limit of 18.2 cubic feet per second. The latest city application going through Forest Service environmental review would maintain the existing 18.2 cubic feet per second cap.
The meeting is at 7 p.m. today at City Hall, 710 N.W. Wall Street, Bend.
The Forest Service will accept public comments on the modified city proposal beginning Dec. 20, according to a news release Tuesday. The public comment period ends Jan. 25. For more information, visit www.fs.fed.us /nepa/project_list.php? forest=110601, or call project leader Rod Bonacker at 541-383-4761.
