The public has until Feb. 8 to comment on a plan that, if adopted, would make sweeping changes in the way long-term drinking water planning is conducted on Oregon’s central coast.
The plan includes $120 million worth of specifically targeted water use and conservation projects. It is the product of six years of work among a consortium of cities, utilities, tribes, special districts and conservation organizations.
The group that coordinated the draft plan is the Mid-Coast Water Planning Partnership. Formed in 2016, it was one of four planning partnerships authorized by the state to initiate “place-based” water planning. Prior to 2016, long-term water planning efforts were carried out by state agencies.
The draft plan can be found on the planning partnership’s website.
The plan now on the table varies little from a 160-page plan released in late September, said Alexandria Scott, the partnership’s water-planning coordinator. Several of the agencies participating in the effort wanted to make slight revisions, resulting in the document now out for public comment, she said.
“The real point is that we now have a plan that our partners have reached consensus on,” Scott said. “That’s a huge accomplishment in itself.”
The partnership submitted the plan to the various state agencies involved in water planning Dec. 23. Those agencies are now reviewing the plan to determine if it is sufficient to get formal state recognition.
That recognition is critical, Scott said, because state approval would open the way for the state to help participate in the funding needed to actually get the plan’s proposed projects underway.
Assuming the agencies sign on, the partnership would formally present the plan in June to the Oregon Water Resource Commission. Approval there represents the final step in the partnership’s efforts to have the plan formally recognized and adopted by the state.
“Starting now, the entire process will move pretty quickly,” Scott said. “This is really the final push.”
Scott said any public comments should be submitted to her by email by Feb. 8.
