Mayor and Council – I wanted to provide you all with some new information regarding wastewater. Our opponents in our wastewater trek began using the tactic of inciting Canby utility (water) users into believing Molalla is “poisoning” their water. The result has shown up in one example e-mail train below and a pretty good article in the link. What you need to know is that Canby Utility cannot detect when we are discharging or not and we do have a relationship with Canby Utility, Veolia (Contract Operator) as well as the City of Canby.
Dan Huff
City Manager
City of Molalla, Oregon
(503)829-6855
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From: Gerald Fisher
Sent: Tuesday, December 3, 2019 5:11 PM
To: 'Rebecca Thomas' <rebeccahottel09@gmail.com>
Subject: RE: Molalla not following laws
Ms. Thomas,
Attached is a typical example of the testing we take to compare the quality of the river compared to the quality of our treated effluent. The sample on the left is from the Molalla River. Yellow denotes coliform and the cells with X’s denotes E-coli. You will note that the treated effluent sample on the right is clear. That is because it is treated to meet our permit requirements. In fact, we pull water from the river, clean it like Canby, use it for drinking water, receive the waste stream at the wastewater treatment plant, clean it again and send it back to the river. The water going back into the river is cleaner than the water we took out of the river.
We are not “poisoning” the people of Canby as you’ve stated. We have professional staff here, just like your staff in Canby, that work hard to make the best water possible and comply with local, state, and federal rules. I’m not sure where you got your information from, probably a Facebook post, but it isn’t accurate and you may want to check with both sides before sending an email like the one below. There is at least one individual who continues to spread rumors about the City discharging sewage into the river. It’s not true and we can’t physically send raw sewage to the river. We can only send treated effluent to the river. If you want facts and are willing to take the time to actually come and talk with me, I will be happy to educate you on our wastewater treatment process. If not, then I encourage you to at least read information from our website. Here are three links.
https://www.cityofmolalla.com/publicworks/page/wastewater-treatment-plant-improvements
https://www.cityofmolalla.com/publicworks/page/permit-plans-annual-reports
https://www.cityofmolalla.com/publicworks/page/dmrs-and-other-documents
I encourage you to start with the documents in the first link. Then move on to the technical documents from our Permit, Plans, and Annual Reports page. These are the technical documents that explain how our system works. The final link is all of our communications with DEQ. It’s a lot of reading but once you’ve read it and understand the system and the clean effluent we make, the rumors you’ve heard will not have merit. Thank you and again I would be happy to speak with you if you so choose.
Regards,
Gerald Fisher, P.E. | Public Works Director
City of Molalla
117 N Molalla Ave. | PO Box 248 |Molalla, OR 97038
Office: 503.829.6855 | Direct: 503.759.0218
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From: Rebecca Thomas <rebeccahottel09@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 3, 2019 3:19 PM
To: Gerald Fisher <gfisher@cityofmolalla.com>
Subject: Molalla not following laws
I was wondering how your city can break the law for water treatment, poison the people of canby and get away with it? I think channel 12 should really dig into what you are doing to the people down stream. Let's test people for bacterial diseases. Since the last time your city dumped disgusting over flow of what you are allowed by covering it up as an emergency, which we all know isnt true, my husband has been sick. I would love to see what the test results come back as and see if it has anything to do with your contamination.
I don't know how you people sleep at night.
Bless your heart!