EWEB to rebuild both College Hill and Hawkins Hill water towers
EUGENE, Ore. - The water supply for the Eugene population is on its way to a new home.
EWEB says both College Hill and Hawkins Hill reservoirs will be rebuilt into smaller ones, and the E. 40th site they acquired back in the 1950s will finally be put to use.
The water you get out of your tap, the water used to suppress an urban wildfire in South Eugene, really, all of Eugene’s water supply relies on two massive tanks - College Hill and Hawkins Hill.
But there's one big problem: these reservoirs are aging and not seismically sound.
“Recent assessments indicate that College Hill and Hawkins are unlikely to survive,” Joe Harwood with EWEB said.
He says the tanks need a lot of work.
“The plan is to build a new tank and then add a second tank and demolish this one,” he said while looking at a map.
Instead, both sites will house two smaller tanks at two 7.5 million gallons.
And, as for the extra needed water storage that's going to be built on EWEB’s E. 40th site as early as 2021, the first site to be built.
For the neighbors, it's all new.
EWEB has been meeting with them for feedback and hearing any concerns because construction will be noisy and backyard views could change some.
“We’ll see probably the top edge of the second tank,” neighbor Steve Loges said.
He says he's not too concerned since the tanks will be partly underground.
“I’d love to keep it all completely open, but I understand this is why and for the greater good of the community,” he said.
Harwood says EWEB will keep some open space and leave a lot of the trees.
A project that will cost EWEB customers about $1 dollar each month and keep our water supply safe.
