The Portland Water Bureau on Friday ordered a halt to construction at the $2.1 billion Bull Run Filtration Project site after an adverse land-use ruling. It’s unclear how long construction will be paused at the site.

The Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals in January remanded a decision to Multnomah County, saying the county had failed to fully consider natural resources in its decision approving construction. With the legal matter on remand, the Water Bureau on Friday paused work on the project.

“There are many unknowns at this time – including the duration of the pause – but we’ll be working with the county and LUBA to better understand the timeline and project impacts in coming days and weeks,” Water Bureau spokeswoman Felicia Heaton stated in an email Friday.

The city is up against a deadline imposed by the Oregon Health Authority to deliver filtered water to customers by Sept. 30, 2027. The construction of the plant stems from the discovery in 2017 of the parasite cryptosporidium in Portland’s water supply.

“While we respect the land use process and will fully comply with the remand, every day of delay drives up construction costs and increases the risk of missing our public health compliance deadline — challenges that directly impact our communities, businesses and ratepayers,” Priya Dhanapal, deputy city administrator for public works, stated in a news release.

Mayor Keith Wilson, in a statement Friday, said the project is “the right thing to do to protect public health.”

“We will continue to participate faithfully in the land use process and look forward to addressing the issues on remand so we can get back to building this critical project as efficiently and cost effectively as possible,” Wilson added.

The project is being built by a joint venture of water-plant specialist MWH Constructors and construction giant Kiewit Corp. in a rural area of east Multnomah County near the Clackamas County line. The joint venture broke ground on the site in June 2024.

Workers at the site on Friday received text messages saying “construction is temporarily suspended until further notice.” Non-manual staff were advised to report to work on Monday to help guide the project through its next phase.

Craft employees were told not to report to work Saturday through Tuesday.

“Some critical construction operations will continue and craft employees will be notified by their direct employer in the next few days,” a message stated.

“We are sorry for this unplanned disruption of your good work and will inform you of the next steps when given guidance by the Portland Water Bureau,” another message stated.

Project supporters are exploring another option: state legislation that would exempt the project from zoning requirements.

Senate Bill 936 would make a “public health infrastructure facility” an allowed use in any zone if the facility were to face a construction deadline from the Oregon Health Authority, Department of Environmental Quality or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The bill would essentially strip local authorities of land use approval powers over such projects.

The bill is sponsored in the Senate by Sens. Chris Gorsek, D-Gresham, and Sen. James Manning Jr., D-Eugene. It has been referred to the Veterans, Emergency Management, Federal and World Affairs Committee.

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The Portland Water Bureau recently obtained the largest Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) loan ever from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The $727 million, low-interest loan is expected to cover at least half of the cost of the Bull Run Filtration Project, which consists of three infrastructure improvements that are intended to provide the Portland area with clean water and a seismically resilient supply system by 2027.

“You’re going to be improving the environment; you’re doing to be reducing lead and increasing drinking water quality for over 1 million residents while adding over 4,000 jobs,” Radhika Fox, the EPA’s acting assistant administrator for water, stated during a virtual press conference. “It is everything we want to see in our communities.”

The first of the three projects will produce a new corrosion control facility at the existing Lusted Hill water treatment facility east of Gresham. Ground was broken on this in fall 2020. Highlights include construction of a new building to contain the corrosion control treatment system, a water utility water pump station, and associated piping and support systems. Work is being carried out by Colorado-based general contractor MWH Constructors and expected to be complete by April 2022, ahead of a federal regulatory deadline.

The primary purpose of this project, said Michelle Cheek, the deputy program director for the Bull Run Filtration Project and an engineering supervisor for the Water Bureau, is to make low-alkaline Bull Run water less corrosive to the copper and lead solder pipes found in some home and building plumbing – primarily systems constructed between 1970 and 1985.

The new facility will treat water to raise its alkalinity and help it meet new regulatory standards.

“The existing facility is a chemical feed facility, where they add caustic soda and chemicals to treat the water,” Cheek said. “(The caustic soda system) will be decommissioned once the new facilities are constructed. It’s a pretty process-mechanical focused project.”

The second, larger project will be construction of a new water filtration facility on city-owned property half of a mile south of the Lusted Hill one. When the new facility is brought online, it will mark the end of unfiltered water for Portland water customers.

“We will consolidate all of our treatment facilities here,” said David Peters, the program director for the Bull Run Filtration Project. “The disinfection we do in the watershed with chlorine will move to this site.”

Granular media filtration will be used to remove cryptosporidium and other contaminants, and the new treatment plant will be able to filter up to 145 million gallons of water per day. Planning began in 2017 as part of the regulatory compliance schedule and is now nearly complete. Design work is set to finish in late 2022, with construction scheduled to wrap up by 2027.

“Normally a utility would have done a number of years of planning,” Peters said. “But we had to consolidate that into our compliance schedule because we did not have a plan to do this.”

Some of the firms involved include Brown and Caldwell (program management), and Stantec and Carollo Engineers (predesign and finalization of details for the design). The joint venture of MWH Constructors and Kiewit will serve as construction manager/general contractor.

Finally, the third project will be installation of pipelines for water from the new filtration facility and corrosion control facility. Jacobs of California will design the pipelines. The Water Bureau is likely to issue in April a request for proposals for a CM/GC to handle the project, Peters said.

“We hope to have them on board by the end of the year,” he said.

The new filtration facility and the pipelines will be designed to modern seismic standards and become key components of a system designed to function even after events such as earthquakes, wildfires or storms add contaminants to water.

The Bull Run Treatment Project will generate an estimated 4,700 to 7,500 jobs, with 28 percent of journeyman work hours and 31 percent of apprentice work hours going to minorities and women in the skilled trades. The projects will deliver an estimated $200 million in contracts to disadvantaged, minority-owned, woman-owned, service-disabled-veteran-owned, and emerging small businesses.

The interest rate for the WIFIA loan will be just 1.89 percent. The loan will save the city an estimated $247.5 million in comparison to typical market financing. A combination of revenue bonds and Portland Water Bureau system funds also will be used to pay for the project.

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