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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.
Nov. 7, 2021

Dear East 40th Neighbors,
Excavation will resume tomorrow, Nov. 8. Controlled blasting is expected to resume Tuesday, Nov. 9.
Contractors completed paving of the entrance last week. The paved entrance in intended to reduce the amount of sediment leaving the site and entering the gutter. With this new erosion control measure in place, excavation will continue. Please be prepared for a resumption of dump truck traffic on Monday morning (Nov. 8).
 
The blasting contractor has submitted a plan to EWEB for preventing incidents like what happened on Nov. 2 from occurring again.
 
The plan includes expanding the footprint of blast mats to extend 20 feet past the last loaded hole, and retraining workers to ensure they mark any drill hole anomalies with visible flags. 

EWEB's Safety Office has reviewed the contractor's plan and we are satisfied that these corrective actions are appropriate to prevent future incidents.

At this time, we expect the twice-a-week blasting schedule will resume on Tuesday, Nov. 9. However, there will be no blast on Thursday, Nov. 11 as this is a Federal holiday (Veterans Day).

It's possible that a second blast might be rescheduled for another day during the week of Nov. 8 (to make up for the missed 11/11 blast). If a second blast is planned, we will inform neighbors in advance.

As a reminder, scheduled blasts will occur between 1-1:30 p.m. The actual blast will last only a couple of seconds.

Horn safety signals will sound 5 minutes and 1 minute before the blast and at the conclusion of the blast.

If you are near the construction site and hear a horn signal, please be aware blasting activity will occur shortly and follow instructions of site personnel or any additional signage that may be posted.
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