Water Storage Improvement Projects
Access to clean water is vital to our community.
EWEB is hard at work making sure safe, reliable water continues to flow even as critical infrastructure ages and new challenges arise. In the next decade, we plan to construct new water storage facilities near 40th Ave. and Patterson St. and replace the water storage systems at EWEB's College Hill and Hawkins Hill sites. The projects will be built to seismic and contemporary operating standards, providing more than 40 million gallons of resilient, safe water storage.
July 29, 2022

Dear East 40th Neighbors,
Earthwork and tank subgrade preparation is complete and dump truck hauling is mostly over for now. Crews are currently working on installing rebar and forms for the floor of Tank 1 in preparation for concrete. For the next year or so, it will be primarily concrete work at the site.
What to expect
 
Both of the 7.5 MG tanks will be constructed concurrently, beginning with the floors, then walls, then roof slabs.

The floors (and eventually roof) slabs are the largest concrete pours that will happen, meaning lots of trucks running continuously.

The floors will be constructed in quadrants and will take a total of four concrete pours for each floor slab. In total, each floor slab will require approximately 800 cubic yards of concrete.

The first major pour will occur on Friday, Aug. 5 and will require approximately 20 truckloads of concrete. Note this date may need to be shifted depending on progress and availability of concrete and the required staff.

The trucks will be safely staged near the site, starting around 6:30 a.m. on Aug. 5.

You can expect a few more construction workers on pour days and they will be arriving a little earlier than normal to be ready. Crews will arrive at the project site around 6:30-6:45 a.m.

At 7 a.m. the first truckload of concrete will arrive, and then trucks will come and go in a continuous stream about every 10 minutes through early afternoon.

After Aug. 5, the next scheduled pour dates are tentatively Monday, Aug. 15 and Thursday, Aug. 18.

Once the floors are poured, the frequency of pours will increase to several a week, but each pour will be smaller--just a couple of trucks per day.

The concrete trucks and pumps will create engine noise and a loud humming sound. In between pours, while concrete is setting, it will be fairly quiet at the site.
 
Reminders regarding general construction impacts:
 
  • We will only do work during hours that the City of Eugene noise ordinance allows and we will communicate work hours as the work progresses.
  • Truck noise such as beeping is not easily mitigated as that is an OSHA-required safety feature and needs to be loud enough for someone to hear while wearing hearing protection. When possible, trucks will be routed around the site to avoid the need to back up.
  • While we can't anticipate or mitigate all impacts, we will be responsive to your questions, suggestions, or concerns. Please reach out to us directly so that we can quickly address any issues that arise by email at water.storage@eweb.org or by phone at 541-685-7899.
Timelapse cameras capturing construction

Cameras have a special ability to help us see what the human eye can't. Infrared spectrum cameras like the Wildfire Alert camera EWEB recently helped install can detect heat from wildfires. Macro lenses and high frame rate cameras can help us zoom in to the minuscule and slow down what's too fast to detect. Timelapse cameras speed up time and let us observe changes that might be imperceptible otherwise.

Thanks to two new timelapse cameras, we can now view months of construction at the E. 40th project site in a matter of seconds. Watch the walls rise from the earth. Watch the shadow of the crane spin like a sundial. See the construction crews zip around like a team of ants.

We will share new videos every month.
Contact us with questions
If you have questions or input, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the project team at
541-685-7899 or water.storage@eweb.org. Emails sent to this address will reach:

  • Laura Farthing, Project Manager/Senior Civil Engineer
  • Jen Connors, Communications Supervisor
  • Jeannine Parisi, Customer Relationship Manager
  • Wally McCullough, Water Engineering Supervisor