Mt. Angel's aging water system could cost at least $100K to fix

This spring, Mt. Angel was one of the lucky Mid-Valley towns unaffected by the toxic algae bloom that fouled municipal drinking water in Salem.

City staff and contractors have been busy here too, though, working to solve a problem with the water system’s aging computerized controls and increasing the size of mainline pipes downtown.

On July 14, the wireless connection between Mt. Angel’s two wells and its pair of water storage reservoirs atop the hill next to Mt. Angel Abbey and Seminary failed, causing one of the tanks to overflow. Downhill, residents at the Carmelite House of Studies worried because this had happened before.

A similar water reservoir overflow in 2016 resulted in water damage to the 19,000-square-foot house of study, said Mt. Angel Public Works Supt. Dan Bernt.

Located on the western slope of the hill, the “house” is actually large facility with 26 rooms, a kitchen and a chapel designed for Catholic seminary students and the priests that teach them.

When the house was built 13 years ago, contractors disconnected and built over a 50-year-old overflow pipe connecting the water storage reservoirs above to a roadside ditch along Humpert Lane below, Bernt said. So, when a technical glitch caused one of the city’s wells to keep pumping water into the reservoir until it overflowed, water infiltrated the house instead of running around it.

“What was left was an open swale, which, over a number of years, became almost non-existent,” he said. “So that last overflow did some damage.”

When the telemetry failed again this summer, no damage occurred, but the Carmelites brought in a backhoe to repair the diversion ditches.

Now the bigger question for city leaders is what to do about Mt. Angel’s aging telemetry, the automated system that measures water levels in the two tanks – 1 million gallons and 250,000 gallons, respectively – and messages the city’s wells below to start or stop pumping as needed.

“Our telemetry system was installed in 1995-96,” Bernt said. “We had a vendor come in this summer to see what it will cost to replace, and the least expensive option available to us is about $100,000.”

For now, replacement of a $750 part is keeping things running. Correct Equipment, a 19-year-old company with an office in Canby, has been Mt. Angel’s advisor about instrumentation upgrades thus far, and the city’s Infrastructure Task Force, led by Councilor Don Fleck, will discuss the system at its meeting this month.

Meanwhile, in downtown Mt. Angel, BRX Inc., of Albany, is nearly done with a $320,000-$340,000 water pipe replacement project that the council has been planning and saving for since the project was put on the city’s master plan in 2010.

“We’re replacing 1,600 feet of water line,” said City Manager Amber Mathiesen. “The city has saved reserves over time for this, and we’re paying for it out of our budget.”

Main and Markham streets are getting upsized 12-inch mainline pipe, and John Street is getting 8-inch pipe, an upgrade from the 4-inch pipe that’s served residents until now. Work is expected to end this month, before Oktoberfest opens on Sept. 13.

“Residents will notice more water flow and probably better taste because the system is looped a little better and there are fewer dead-ends,” Bernt said.

More pipe upgrades are planned next year for the main lines serving the Tower Lane area and Grandview in Mt. Angel, a new housing development currently under construction for residents 55 and older.

“That general area serves multiple homes and Mount Angel Towers Retirement Community, and Grandview housing is now going in,” Mathiesen said. “We’re talking about 1,550 feet of pipe, creating a tie-in that doesn’t exist, and looping the system.”

Grandview, a single-owner development with 56 individual homes available for lease, is new growth, allowing the city to reach more deeply into its bank of System Development Charge fees, collected from developers. Eighty percent of the project is eligible for SDC funds, and Mount Angel Towers is expected to contribute to the project also, Mathiesen said.