North Bend’s wastewater treatment plant was opened in 1978 and will soon be replaced. At the recent city council meeting, members debated reusing some of the equipment to save money.
Council presented options for sewer plant
by Nathan Arneal
Published 10/29/25
The North Bend City Council studied two versions of plans for its new wastewater treatment plant presented by JEO engineer Tyler Keenan at the Oct. 21 council meeting.
The original plans were to build the plant south of the current plant, which is about a quarter mile east of town on Platte River Road. That plan was scrapped mainly because of delays and complications of installing piping underneath the railroad. The current plans put the plant on the north side of Platte River Road with the lagoons being installed on 10 to 13 acres north of the current plant.
Keenan presented “red” and “blue” options. The red version is made up of all new infrastructure and is essentially a copy of the plans made for the south location moved to the north location.
With the new site next to the current plant, the blue version was drawn up to reuse some of the existing buildings and equipment at the current treatment plant. Keenan said the blue version would provide about $500,000 of savings on the $10 million project since it incorporates some of the existing infrastructure.
Keenan said the advantages of the red version would be having all new equipment and structures that will last longer with cleaner and easier construction for the contractor. The red version would also have a straighter piping with fewer turns while carrying the treated water to the river. It would also be able to better make use of gravity on its flow to the river.
On the other hand, the blue version requires several more corners and some backtracking in its piping to hit all the necessary treatment equipment in their current locations. It would also require more pumping and lift stations rather than gravity to maintain its flow.
At first, the council seemed to be strongly leaning toward the blue option and the half million of savings.
“I think it makes total sense to re-purpose whatever we can and save ourselves whatever we can,” councilman Alex Legge said.
Mayor Rod Scott said the savings made blue the attractive option.
“If you were only going to save $100,000 on blue, you’d go with red,” Scott said, “but if you’re going to save $500,000 by going blue, you go blue.”
Legge asked Keenan his opinion on the two options.
“Both options will work well,” Keenan said. “The blue one is probably going to be a little trickier for us to get that figured out, but that’s a better option when you consider cost savings. Long term, obviously the red option is going to be better because you’re going to have newer (equipment.)
“There’s pros and cons.”
Councilman Chuck Krenzer, who oversees the city’s water and sewer department, said his opinion might not be a popular one.
“My gut feeling is you go with the red and clean it up and straighten it up,” Krenzer said. “$500,000 is a considerable amount of money, and I think either (option) will work, but I’m a firm believer in straight lines and fewer moving parts.”
CORRECTION: Previous reporting by the Eagle has given the construction date of the current wastewater plant as 1967. Further research shows that the sewer plant built in 1967 was not the current one. The current plant was built in 1977 and 1978 and went into operation on June 12, 1978. That makes the age of the facility 47 years old, not 58 as previously reported.
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