Related News
Related News
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Community members can test out climate-friendly e-bikes at E-Bike Expo on Saturday
EWEB encourages Eugene residents to ride into summer on clean, accessible e-bikes, with a $300 e-bike rebate.
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EWEB Hosts Dinner to Appreciate Customers of the McKenzie River Valley
EWEB hosted a customer appreciation dinner at the Walterville Community Center on Thursday, May 23, in place of its yearly upriver Board meeting. The event allowed customers, EWEB Commissioners, and staff to share a meal and openly discuss topics most relevant to the McKenzie Valley community.
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EWEB bids a fond farewell to College Hill Reservoir and prepares for modern drinking water storage tanks
Several hundred Eugene residents came together on May 30 for a Farewell Celebration at EWEB’s College Hill Reservoir before demolition and construction to build modern drinking water storage tanks begins later this year.
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EWEB invests in satellite-based forestry analytics for vegetation management
EWEB maintains over 1,300 miles of overhead transmission and distribution lines. To aid crews in identifying hazardous vegetation growth in a sometimes heavily forested service territory, EWEB is utilizing a new satellite-based forestry analytics software called Overstory.
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Tips to stay cool while saving money this summer
June is quickly approaching, and that means summer weather is just around the corner. Before you turn up the air conditioning and see an increase in your utility bill, try these tips to prepare your home for warmer weather to keep your home cool.
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Drinking Water Week 2024
This week, we celebrate the value of clean, safe water, the importance of water infrastructure, and the critical role of water professionals.
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EWEB offering additional energy efficiency supplement to qualified customers
Current EWEB residential electric customers may qualify to double their energy efficiency rebates with a limited time supplement.
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EWEB opens application for 2024 Electric Mobility Community Grants
Grant awards of up to $30,000 to cover costs associated with electric mobility projects.
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Upgrades to Eugene's downtown electric network continue
You may have noticed construction this week on the corner of 7th and Pearl Street. That’s because crews replaced a corroded, aging vault with an innovative, new Voltek vault. The Voltek design allows for the new infrastructure to be built inside of the existing aging vault. We’re able to install the new vault while the cables are still energized, minimizing disruption to customers and traffic while cutting construction time in half.
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The Big Freeze 2024: After Action Report
Winter 2024 was one for the records books, and we'll look back on it for years to come and say, "That was a doozy!" The back-to-back January Ice Storms caused widespread damage to EWEB’s service territory, affecting approximately 38,000 customers. Preliminary repair costs were over $8 million, and additional repairs to transmission lines are still required.
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Fixing the Unseen: Water Pipeline Replacement in Unincorporated Eugene
Learn more about EWEB's methods for monitoring and replacing aged water pipelines.
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New tanks come online as EWEB modernizes water system
New drinking water storage tanks are one of several investments to ensure that EWEB can meet critical community needs in the event of an earthquake.
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Celebrate Earth Month by taking charge of your home's energy use
This Earth Month, learn how you can reduce your energy usage to help protect our planet and reduce carbon emissions.
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Spring Cleaning? How about Spring Emergency Preparedness!
Spring is officially here and that means the plants are blooming, the sun is (sometimes) shining, and the grass is green! We've had our fair share of severe weather already, but spring weather is notoriously unpredictable. While you're in the midst of spring cleaning and garden care, consider completing these emergency preparedness tasks.
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EWEB General Manager Delivers 2024 State of the Utility
General Manager Frank Lawson delivered his address at the March 5 public Board of Commissioners meeting
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EWEB 2022 State of the Utility Address
March 25, 2022
As a public utility owned by the people of Eugene, it’s important for EWEB to be open and transparent with our customer-owners. The following State of the Utility Address, delivered by General Manager Frank Lawson at the March 1 EWEB Board meeting, highlights some key events, accomplishments and challenges from 2021.
"Good evening Commissioners, EWEB teammates, customer-owners and interested members of the community.
"Last year I used the term 'healthy' to describe EWEB, as we were learning to perform in the midst of a pandemic, which was having tangible impacts on our community and our organization. For 2021, I would describe EWEB as perservering, resolute, persistent and accomplished. There is only one reason I have the fortunate opportunity to use these words to describe EWEB, and that is our people, including front-line contributors, supervisors, managers, executives, board members, community partners, union, non-union, operations, administrative, management and support. It takes an entire team.
"I'll use most of the presentation portion of this agenda item to describe the results, issues, opportunities and trends. So I'll focus most of my State of the Utility comments on high-level thoughts.
"I'd like to start by thanking all the Commissioners. For all of us in the organization, it is a pleasure to work with a Board that is respectful, hardworking and cares about the services we provide and the legacy we leave. There were times that challenged you this past year, and we appreciate your support, leadershp, guidance and advice as we tackle some important issues in the years ahead.
"2021 saw some incredible results from EWEB. We delivered over 2.3 billion kilowatt hours of electricity and 9.5 billion gallons of high-quality drinking water to roughly 200,000 people in our community. We did this in a manner consistent with our values of safety, reliability, affordability, environmental stewardship and community. We did this under conditions that stressed our supply chains, put new inflationary pressures on our costs and in a treacherous workplace climate that saw 'The Great Resignation' (and in some cases migration) and a new labor market tightness, putting additional strain on EWEB's already loyal and professional workforce.
"In 2021, EWEB incredibly achieved eight of our nine organizational goals and sub-goals, with the supply chain issues associated with advanced meters being the only notable exception. Financially, we are sound, and becaue we use a 'source to tap' or 'source to switch' approach to delivery, reliability is solid and water quality is good.
"In 2021, we worked with the Board to update the strategic plan, further identifying key 3-5 year milestones and revising our values. We collaborated and aligned with the Board to develop direction and decision criteria on watershed recovery and protection, lower McKenzie hydro-projects, information system/technology investment planning, wildfire mitigation planning and multi-year cost-of-service-analysis (COSA). We published an electrification impact analysis report that will inform certain aspects of our integrated resource planning going forward.
"We also experienced some challenges in 2021, and are working to address these issues transparently and intentionally. Most of the challenges manifested from specific issues and were contained to discrete trends, milestones or issues. We recognize our opportunity and obligation to take corrective action and work towards sustainable improvement. For that reason, many remedial activities are already included in our 2022 organizational or departmental goals. As I review the specific results later in this presentation, I'll elaborate on some of these challenges further.
"I'd like to close my comments the way I began, by thanking my EWEB teammates, the Board, and our many partners throughout the community and region. I'd personally like to thank the executive team and managers, with whom I work most closely and frequently. I'd also like to thank Anne Kah and Holly Shugart, who are vital to our success. Thank you all."
You can watch the full March 1 Board meeting here.