Facilities Plan FAQs

The MWMC’s comprehensive facilities plan is a forecast report that analyses different collection, treatment, and resource recovery alternatives to meet the Eugene Springfield regional community’s wastewater needs through 2045.  

The MWMC is creating new facilities plan to ensure compliance with our National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit through the State of Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The permit ensures we are safely treating our community’s wastewater with high operating efficiencies and cost effectiveness, provide continued reliable and resilient service, and build public support and partnerships for the regional community’s wastewater needs.   

The goal of a new MWMC Comprehensive Facilities Plan is to build on previous planning efforts to develop a practical and cost-effective list of capital improvements necessary to meet community wastewater needs and evolving environmental standards for all facilities for the next 20-plus years. A facilities plan, or similar long range planning document presents a comprehensive identification and evaluation of available capital improvement strategy alternatives, and recommendations. The 2025 MWMC Comprehensive Facilities Plan will consist of three volumes: 

• Volume I: Integrated Plan (MWMC regional water quality roadmap) 

• Volume II: Process Facilities Plan (MWMC wastewater treatment process and 20-year capital improvement plan) 

• Volume III: Opportunities Plan (MWMC project implementation and organizational improvement options) 

The three-volume Comprehensive Facilities Plan approach will help the MWMC meet its long-term wastewater treatment obligations by addressing MWMC wastewater treatment, community obligations, and the surrounding watershed holistically. Challenges of increased population, aging infrastructure, complex regulatory requirements, water resource limitations, climate change, and affordability all impact MWMC operations. The goal of the three volumes is to address competing clean water infrastructure investment needs and choose the most beneficial approaches for setting priorities and taking effective actions for achieving water quality goals. 

• Volume One – Research and Data Collection 
• Volume Two – Analysis of Research 
• Volume Three – Refinement and Implementation of Analysis  

• Guide MWMC investments that protect our local waterways, the environment, and public health. 

• Analyze wastewater treatment alternatives based on Eugene-Springfield population growth expectations, residential and industrial wastewater influent, and federal, state, and local water quality regulations. 

• Ranking of wastewater treatment alternatives presented by performance and cost. 

• Connecting the Eugene-Springfield community and its wastewater to the larger water quality initiatives of local watersheds and Willamette River system health. 

In 2004 the first MWMC Facilities Plan was published after DEQ review. CH2M HILL was the contracted consultant. It was a two-volume document that enlisted the services of nine CH2M staff and a dozen Eugene and Springfield staff and took over a year to complete.      

In 2014 a Partial Facilities Plan Update (PFPU) report was completed by internal staff to provide an analysis of the critical wastewater treatment process capacities relative to current estimates of influent flows and loads as well as current, recent, and anticipated regulatory changes. 

The MWMC serves the wastewater needs of nearly everyone in the Eugene-Springfield Urban Growth Boundaries. We clean an average of 35 million gallons of wastewater a day for more than 250,000 customers. The wastewater is collected by each of the cities of Eugene and Springfield’s separate collections systems. Those collection systems route the areas wastewater to the regional MWMC system where it is directed to the regional Water Pollution Control Facility off River Avenue in Eugene. 

The new MWMC Comprehensive Facilities Plan on its own will not raise service rates. As individual capital construction projects listed in the Comprehensive Facilities Plan are identified for implementation pre-calculated System Development Charges (SDCs) will be imposed as projects are approved and put into service. 

If everything continues as expected, we plan to complete this project in 2025.

We plan to hold open houses and present on this plan to the Commission at specified regular monthly meetings. All monthly MWMC meetings are open to the public to attend. 

We will post specific dates once details have been confirmed. To stay informed, sign up for the MWMC newsletter or check our project webpage periodically for updates.

All comments are welcome. The goal of public outreach is to inform our community and MWMC rate payers of the importance of regional wastewater planning and what construction projects can be expected over the next 20-years to keep the MWMC in compliance with regulatory standards and continue to provide high quality service. All comments will be considered during the planning process.   

MWMC Comprehensive Facilities Plan information is available here.

Bryan Robinson 

Project Manager 

City of Springfield 

Development and Public Works 

541-744-4154 

brobinson@springfield-or.gov