The Willamette River downstream from the twin outfalls of the Albany sewage treatment plant. The photo was taken Nov. 15, the end of the period each year when the DEQ wants the temperature of the plant effluent to be limited.
State regulators are inviting public comment on their proposed new Albany “water quality permit,” but they don’t tell us anything about the most important question: How much will this cost?
The permit is meant to limit water pollution in the Willamette River. It controls how much or how little of various contaminants can be in the effluent that is pumped into the river from the Albany Millersburg Water Reclamation Facility.
For the first time, the new permit will limit the temperature of the plant’s effluent. This is not a simple matter of sticking a thermometer onto a pipe and adding cold water if the temperature is too high.
Instead, the limit is based on the “heat load” of the discharge, a term that combines the volume and temperature of the effluent.
As I understand it from Kristin Preston, who manages operations in Albany Public Works, the discharge from the plant changes seasonally and ranges from 5 to more than 30 million gallons a day. The effluent’s temperature ranges from about 59 to 72 degrees Fahrenheit.
I read the permit, and as I understand it, the heat load limits will apply from April 1 through Nov. 15 each year. There are no limits in the winter.
From April 1 through May 15, and again in the fall from Oct. 15 through Nov. 15, the permit shows a maximum allowed temperature of 55 degrees Fahrenheit. (It actually says 13 degrees Celsius, but I converted that to Fahrenheit for your convenience.)
That’s a little lower than the current low range of the effluent.
During the summer, the DEQ permit allows a maximum of 64 degrees F (18°C). That’s quite a bit lower than the high end of the discharge’s current temperature range.
This leads me to conclude that Albany will have to do something to cool the effluent at least during the summer.
Cooling the effluent was why Albany built the Talking Water Gardens, a system of ponds and waterfalls, in 2012. But those ponds have been shut down under DEQ orders because they leak to nearby creeks and the river.
The new permit reiterates that additional outfalls, such as leaks from ponds, are prohibited.
So the question Albany and Millersburg ratepayers have is: How is the water going to be cooled, and how much is that going to cost?
As a government agency, the DEQ doesn’t care what its mandates cost, so its permit does not come with suggestions for solutions or an estimate of expenses.
The public comment period ends on Jan. 12, 2026. But a chance to comment is useless without answers to the big questions: How can the demands of this permit be met, and how much will ratepayers have to pay? (hh)
What will it cost to comply with the new DEQ requirement, and what will the effects be on user charges?
IS IT TO LATE TO GET BACK MOST OF THAT $22,000,000 THE CITY SPENT..OH MY
Can’t get back the 22 million dollars spent on the pink-brick road and the benches that face an old warehouse and an old Eagles building. Even if we could, the money was in an iron-clad urban renewal district that was set up by The Council. We now have a voted-on-by-the-people law that no more “urban renewal districts” can be set up without a vote of the people. So, don’t let the Council undo that law.
is Bentonite not an option to fix the leaks at talking waters? I assume if it was they would do so, but just curious.
1- A nine degree swing in summer months will have desasterous impacts on the wildlife.
2- This is a industry problem to solve. Why should this fall on the taxpayers to foot the bill? I see this as nothing different from ATI (for example) deciding how to update/maintain their existing facility.
I agree. It is the problem of the industries that pollute to meet the standards required in order to preserve wildlife and habitat. But, that is not how capitalism works. Capitalism, the extreme kind we have in the U.S., puts the burden on the poor and the workers who pay most of the taxes. Ordinary people can’t afford lawyers who figure out ways for them to avoid taxes.
Yes, much better to live in a socialist/communist country like Russia or China, where the government pays all the taxes and the poor people live in luxury.
Unless I am the only one in Albany taking hot showers, and washing my clothes and dishes with hot water, how is this only a problem for industry to solve? The Talking Water project was supposed to have solved this, did the construction of that not have bond insurance to hold the construction accountable to be conforming to the requirements? This is the city government problem to solve.
To address the problem in a rational way, you need to know how many millions of gallons of water in the Willamette flow through Albany in 24 hours and how many million gallons flow from the sewer plant? I would suspect the sewer flow cannot increase the water temperature in the Willamette by 1 degree no matter what the temperature of the sewer flow. The DEQ is always looking for money to fund the bureaucracy and this one way to get it. And for Cay saying a nine degree swing in summer months will have a disastrous effect on wildlife, he obviously has never gone swimming in May versus August.
The idea was that not only Albany would discharge into Talking Waters but also Wah Chang would also dump into Talking Waters. Wah Chang’s effluent was cooler than Albany’s so combining the two would also help cool the water discharging to the Willamette. CH2MHill said it didn’t need a liner in Talking Waters but after a few years that wasn’t correct. The city sued CH2MHill and won their case so where did that money go to. I wasn’t just about Talking Waters but mostly the Treatment plant which didn’t work the way they said it would. Lebanon I believe was also involved in lawsuit as they had same system. From what I remember the discharge pipes go back and forth before discharging into Willamette so why not build a building over those pipes and have a refrigeration company add pipes of coolant around the to cool the discharge. Our water is quite cold so what about a well that has cold water circulate around pipes in the summer if refrigeration doesn’t work
Last I checked, Albany’s lawsuit concerning Talking Water Gardens has not been settled.
I was referring to lawsuit regarding treatment plant as that is where the discharge permit is pending.