Clean Water Services - History

History

In 1969, Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality placed a temporary halt to new construction in Washington County. On February 3, 1970, ten cities and sixteen sanitary districts combined to form the Unified Sewerage Agency (USA). Later that year voters in the new district approved a $36 million bond measure to consolidate, construct and upgrade USA's regional public wastewater treatment facilities. The Durham Wastewater Treatment Facility opened in 1976, which replaced 14 smaller treatment plants. Two years later six more treatment plants were replaced with the opening of the Rock Creek Wastewater Treatment Facility.

As population continued to grow in the service area of USA, the water quality of the Tualatin River worsened. In 1986, the Northwest Environmental Defense Center filed a lawsuit against the United States Environmental Protection Agency, prompting Total Daily Maximum Loads for the Tualatin River. A Clean Water Act amendment adds regulation of storm-water runoff, and the Rock Creek Facility achieves 99% removal of ammonia nitrogen. In 1988, the Tualatin Valley Water Quality Endowment Fund is established by the Northwest Environmental Defense Center lawsuit.

USA worked to maintain the quality of the Tualatin River by establishing Surface Water Management (SWM) utility for water quality and drainage in 1990, and began a $200 million facility expansion and upgrade program to meet compliance deadlines. That same year, the agency established the River Rangers program. USA begins consumption-based rates and combines billing with water providers in 1994.

In July 2001, the United Sewerage Agency renamed itself as Clean Water Service at a cost of $60,000. Clean Water Service's Operations Building opened in 2003, which is used as a showcase of low impact development and the Administrative Building Complex opens. It is the first LEED Gold certified public building in Washington County. In 2004, the agency began a program to add shade along the watersheds streams and river by planting trees and shrubs to lower temperatures of the waterways. This program received approval from environmental regulators and was in lieu of spending $150 million to build chilling systems at the four treatment facilities.

The agency's Rock Creek facility won an EPA National Clean Water Act Recognition Award in 2006, and in 2008 the Durham facility's Influent Pump Station is the first to earn LEED Silver certification. The following year the Durham plant becomes the United States' first wastewater treatment plant to produce commercial fertilizer. In 2010, the Clean Water Institute was established by the agency.