Users/Partners

Opportunities for Small & Large Users

For decades, the MWMC has used recycled water from our wastewater treatment plant for landscape irrigation, plant operations, and watering the poplar trees on our 400-acre Biocycle Farm. We are now preparing to partner with the community to extend this water resource asset for other beneficial uses. To provide the greatest flexibility and ease of use, the MWMC is retooling and adding infrastructure to offer Class A recycled water – the highest quality recycled water approved for a broad array of applications – to other users.

Learn more about Water Reuse in this handout from recycled water partner WateReuse.

Getting recycled water to points of use requires pipelines or tanker trucks. The MWMC will have a partner-accessible recycled water fill station to initially bring recycled water to users. With enough demand and the right locations, pipelines to convey recycled water to users may be warranted in the future. The MWMC installed pipelines in 2011 to convey up to 10 million gallons per day of recycled water to industrial partners to the north of Randy Pape Beltline and potentially across the Willamette River. Additional buildout of pipelines can connect the MWMC to recycled water users from downtown to the Northwest Expressway corridor.

Recycled Water Use Registration

All recycled water uses are registered with the Oregon Water Resources Department under permit from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). The MWMC’s Recycled Water Use Plan, as periodically updated, provides guidance for all of our potential recycled water uses, including the practices to be shared with our partners for ensuring appropriate training and awareness measures are followed (such as “Recycled Water – Not for Drinking” placards at spigots). Class A recycled water is approved for virtually every use that does not require drinking-quality water. This can include lawn watering, fountains and water features, car washing, laundry, fire suppression, food crop irrigation, and many other uses.

Safe & Reliable

Recycled water has been used safely and reliably across the nation for many decades. From our nation’s “salad bowl” in California’s Salinas Valley, to San Antonio, Texas’s River Walk, and rapidly growing adoption for drinking water supplies in the southwest, recycled water has proven to be a safe, trusted, and reliable asset for our industries, environment, and communities.

The MWMC has irrigated landscaping within the fence line of our treatment plant with recycled water since the 1980s. To ensure we provide consistently reliable, high-quality recycled water for the community, our new Class A facilities will add filtration and ultraviolet light disinfection, as well as nearly one million gallons of storage to meet demands as needed. This will allow the MWMC to expand irrigation with recycled water to our publicly-accessible landscaping along the shared use path adjacent to the treatment plant, as well as begin sharing this resource with our community partners.

Get Engaged

To learn more about recycled water use and to add your name to a list of potentially interested users or partners, email Todd Miller, City of Springfield Environmental Services Supervisor, at tmiller@springfield-or.gov.