Ashland’s bid for a Water Treatment Facility faces uncertainty

Ashland’s city hall overlooks Siskiyou Boulevard, the town’s main street. It is in the heart of the downtown area, just steps away from Lithia Park. It is an unassuming building, empty and shuttered by six o’clock on most nights.

Mayor Tonya Graham sat behind her desk last month, preparing for her first full term. Reams of paper were piled from floor to ceiling in the hallway. Binders full of budget proposals shared shelves with Richard Florida’s “The New Urban Crisis.” The steady stream of foot traffic two stories below could be heard through the closed windows.

To begin her term, Graham is focused on bills that passed on the local level in the recent election. However, she is apprehensive.

“We’re particularly concerned about the things that we need the federal government to help us with,” she said. She felt that the re-election of Donald Trump may become an obstacle in the path of the city’s goals.

One of her main concerns is the quality of Ashland’s drinking water.

On the ballot this year was Ashland Measure 15-234. The bill proposed the authorization of $75 million in revenue bonds to finance the construction of an improved water treatment plant.

The bill generated a strong response from constituents and passed with a vote of 7,785 to 2,842. The current water treatment plant was constructed in 1948, and it is vulnerable due to its age.

City Councilor Bob Kaplan was elected in 2022. He views the replacement of the plant as a pressing issue. Prior to settling in Ashland, he led the development of environmental infrastructure in Mexico and Haiti during his time as the president of the Inter-American Foundation.

“It seemed like I could have something to offer with my background,” he said.

“The water treatment plant has old technology. It is not able to treat some of the kinds of contaminants that we’re faced with these days,” said Kaplan. “It’s vulnerable to being overwhelmed.”

The facility currently struggles with properly filtering cyanotoxins out of the water supply. These toxins enter Ashland’s water through algae blooms, and Kaplan worries that contamination would be dangerous. “It’s been increasing over the last few years,” he said, “if you’ve got cyanotoxins that are not treated, it’s poison. You can’t drink that,” he said.

The current plant operates in Ashland Creek Canyon. It was built to take advantage of Ashland’s natural watershed. While cordoned off with iron gates, the plant is visible from several of the popular hiking trails that run throughout Rogue River National Forest.

Dean Silver, an outspoken detractor of 15-234, believes that the project will harm the city in the long term. His online group called Don’t Drown Ashland In Debt had their perspective featured in Ashland’s voter pamphlet this year. “The current water treatment plant is still viable,” said Silver.

Silver believes the plan voted on this election season will be detrimental to the city long-term, calling the plan misguided and misleading. “I thought it was outrageous that the city would approve such a debt,” he said.

City Councilor Bob Kaplan disagrees with this perspective. He does not feel the project misuses the city’s budget. “Our debt per capita is very low,” he said. “We’ve got a very high credit rating for a city.”

Despite the measure passing comfortably, Mayor Graham warns that the project may be affected by the federal budget cuts promised by the Trump administration. “We don’t know if there’s going to be an impact to the funding levels,” Graham said. She worries that the programs that fund these initiatives will be affected.

Measure 15-234 will rely on up to $75 million dollars of EPA funding to complete the project, as shown on page 246 of the March city council minutes. Without federal funding, the city does not have the means to build a new treatment plan.

Kaplan is optimistic that the project will be completed as is. “I’m not as concerned. I don’t think it’s high on the target list,” he said.

Kaplan, instead, is focused on other potential impacts of the political landscape. “The Trump administration changed air quality standards last time,” he said. “They could change water quality standards that water companies have to meet.”

In an Ashland City Council meeting on December 2nd, Director of Public Works Scott Fleury presented a study on the changes to the cost of rates and services this project would require.

When asked if federal budget cuts would affect the project by City Councilor Dylan Bloom, Fleury assured the council that the money for the project was already allocated. “We are meeting with the EPA team on Monday next week,” he said, “our expectation is to close in early Spring of next year.”