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After more than 12 years of planning and preparation and the expenditure of $38 million, the Portland Water Bureau today abruptly halted work on the planned construction of a new water pipeline under the Willamette River.
With the Willamette River Crossing project (WRX), the Water Bureau planned to lay a new pipeline under the river to ensure the westside’s drinking water supply in the event that the bureau’s current, seismically vulnerable pipelines should rupture in a major earthquake. (Those six pipelines connect the city’s main water source, the Bull Run watershed, to 360,000 customers and many businesses, hospitals and other institutional customers on the westside.)
“In the last 45 days alone, new information on construction inflation projections, supply chain challenges and overlap with other Water Bureau, city of Portland and regional projects of a similar nature intensified the potential risks with moving forward now,” the bureau said this morning in a statement.
In an interview this afternoon, Jodie Inman, the bureau’s chief engineer, said the plan had been to present a final proposal to the Portland City Council this spring and then begin construction in the fall. Now that construction start has been pushed back to 2027-28.
Inman says she believes the bureau’s plan remains sound and that money it has spent so far will not be wasted as the restart can build on the work already done. But Inman explained that continuing inflation, competition for contractors, and the bureau’s work on the Bull Run water treatment project—a far larger undertaking—convinced bureau management and Commissioner Mingus Mapps to put the pipeline on hold.
Ron Doctor, a leader of a group of South Waterfront residents who questioned the cost and effectiveness of the city’s design, applauded the decision. His group wants the city to consider other, less disruptive options to the existing plan.
Related: Plans for an Oft-Delayed Drinking Water Pipeline Under the Willamette Have Quietly Changed
“I’m pleased that PWB has realized that their current WRX Pipeline plan is not feasible,” Doctor said. “And I’m pleased that they are closing down their construction sites and will rebid the project.”