Surprise Nehalem City Council Meeting on July 27, 2023
At the meeting Fire Chief Knight was concerned about the hydrants being out of service for so long in the water moratorium area (on the North Fork, McDonald Road and Highway 53) and was curious when the pressure valve for Riverview Meadows would go into service so that the hydrants would be usable. It turns out the pressure valve is currently online and today, July 28th, is when it is being adjusted. Great! But Brian Moore, the public works director, stated it can’t actually go into service until the sump pump is installed and the valve is tested. He does not intend to test the valve until the drought is over because it will use too much water to do the test.
At the meeting Brian Moore called our current situation a drought and stated we have only had 2 inches of rain in the last 96 days. At last night’s meeting the council members for the city of Nehalem approved connecting their water system to Manzanita’s water system at the intersection of Seamont Way and The Promenade in Bayside Gardens. Nehalem will spend $40,000 and intends to accomplish this task in the next month. If you get your water from the city of Nehalem, you should have gotten a postcard in the mail asking you to conserve water.
When the people who live in the water moratorium area were looking for a solution to a lack of water pressure and there was a discussion regarding linking the Nehalem and Manzanita systems together, we were told the two systems were not compatible and it was not an option due to using different chemicals to treat the water. But last night (July 27, 2023) when I brought this up at the city council meeting I was told there was no problem regarding mixing chemicals, both use sodium hypochlorite, the active ingredient in chlorine bleach. With further research it turns out it is the pressure difference in the systems as to why they can not be connected. Last night it was discussed that this issue of different pressures will be overcome with the inter-tie having a pressure valve also installed.
Hmmm….so maybe we could go ahead and help the people in the water moratorium area and up in Riverview Meadows by installing this same connection between the Nehalem and Manzanita water systems over by Mohler on highway 53.
I guess its lucky that manzanita isn’t in a drought?
[…] A gentleman at the July planning commission meeting had a good point that he wouldn’t have bought in Riverview Meadows if he had known there would ever be 4 plexes (and it is actually multiplexes that will be approved for all buildable lots for most of the UBG and city of Nehalem, this means apartments). This argument coupled with the current water moratorium and current drought, I do not see how they can pass these new laws based on 157.388 (D). The city of Nehalem knows they have a real problem. Here is the recent article regarding connecting Nehalem and Manzanita’s water systems. https://nehalemvillage.com/2023/07/28/nehalem-plans-to-get-through-the-drought-of-2023-by-creating-a… […]