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In 1978, Bend’s biggest problem was sewage. Until then, some 17,000 residents piped bathroom waste into septic tanks, drain fields or injected into the earth through a drill hole, or reverse well. The Environmental Protection Agency threatened to halt homebuilding unless the city built a public sewer system, according to Ned Dempsey, an engineer who worked on the project.
Nearly 50 years later, rural communities in Deschutes County have reached a similarly pivotal moment. The inability to properly dispose of wastewater flushed down the toilet or sink has plagued businesses and hampered growth in both Tumalo and Terrebonne. But efforts are escalating to leave wastewater worries behind.
A public sewer system could be installed in the next few years in Terrebonne. The timeline is less clear in Tumalo, where a public sewer district formed in 2024, but the vision for a system is still in its infancy. This month’s election saw the first five members elected to the Tumalo Basin Sewer District.
The district was created earlier this year when community members gathered a required number of signatures on a petition and brought it to the Deschutes County Commission for approval. Without a public request for the district to be included in the election, the district was formed, encompassing downtown Tumalo and nearby neighborhoods in between U.S.
Highway 20 and the Deschutes River, from Tumalo Community School to below the highway roundabout. William Laidlaw, for whom Tumalo was first named, platted the town in 1904 full of lots smaller than a quarter acre. He and others saw it as the future hub of Central Oregon, anchored by a railroad junction and a massive irrigation reservoir.
When those projects didn’t pan out as expected, the town never incorporated. And Laidlaw’s first plat kept it stuck in time. The sign for the community of Tumalo is visible along Cook Avenue on Nov.
14. Oregon Department of Environmental Quality rules require private septic systems be sited on at least one half-acre of land to allow wastewater to dissipate in a drain field. The lack of public sewer hookups has kept small lots vacant to comply with the rule.
More of those lots and new commercial businesses will be developed because of access to sewer, said Rob Fish, longtime Tumalo resident and board member for the new sewer district. But the plan isn’t to make Tumalo into a metropolis, he said. The sewer system will start small with only a handful of property owners paying in at first, he said.
“People shouldn’t worry about Tumalo just exploding suddenly, because we wouldn’t be able to handle that ourselves,” Fish said. “We’re just trying to help with the environment, protect the river and keep Tumalo a nice place to live.” The district expects to hook up to 139 dwellings at startup and add about 10 per year, operating on a budget of $150,000 to $250,000 in the first 10 years, according to an April 2024 report.
Monthly fees are expected to start at $80 per month and rise to about $100 by 2035. Fish said the district will need to seek grants for startup costs. Still, some are wary of how a sewer system might change Tumalo.
Residents expressed interest in setting up limits on certain types of housing during a community planning process in 2022 and 2023. “It could become a pretty urbanized area fairly quickly,” said developer Larry Kine. A few years ago Kine built a private sewer system west of Highway 20 for the Tumalo Property Owners Association.
About 30 homes are hooked up — but Kine says it has the capacity to handle three times that amount. Sewage system could spur new buildings in Tumalo He planned to extend the system across the highway to downtown, but his application was never approved by the county. Timing for construction of the new Tumalo system will depend on how long it takes to find a place for the new wastewater treatment facility.
Unlike Bend, Tumalo’s system won’t be able to handle solid waste, Fish said. Instead, the plan is to pump liquid waste away from houses and businesses to be treated while solids will remain in a tank. Building its own treatment plant was an act of independence for Tumalo.
Fish said the district considered hooking its system into Bend’s, but the consensus was to keep local control over rates and other decisions. Some feared linking to Bend’s system would put Tumalo on the fast track to annexation, Fish said. “We’re kind of independent here,” said Fish, a wastewater engineer whose family moved to Tumalo in 1972.
Terrebonne chose a different route, opting to connect to the city of Redmond’s new wastewater treatment facility. The first phase of the project will have the capacity to hook up 300 buildings and include 6 miles of pipe. Redmond to relocate and expand its wastewater treatment plant The initial system will cost $8 million: $5.
6 million from the district, $1.4 million from an Oregon Department of Transportation road construction project and another $3 million in state grants. Deschutes County has also kicked in funding for the startup of both Tumalo and Terrebonne sewers.
In the first year, monthly rates are expected to cost between $58 and $80 depending on how many people hook up. The system could be expanded to include 1,000 buildings and 15 miles of pipe, according to Ryan Rudnick, an engineer with Parametrix, a consultant. Community members formed the Terrebonne Sanitary District by petition in 2023.
That was after years of feasibility studies and fizzled attempts to bring in sewer. “There are people that actually feel it’s going to happen this time,” said Tim Brown, board chair for the district. Leading the original petition was Parker Vernon, whose family has run the Rustic Ranch mobile home park off of U.
S. Highway 97 since 1991. The septic system on the property was installed in the 1950s or ‘60s, Vernon said.
“We’ve been on a first-name basis with the DEQ for a very long time” Vernon said, naming the state’s environmental agency. Soils in Terrebonne and Tumalo are less than ideal for managing wastewater, but for opposite reasons, said Todd Cleveland, wastewater supervisor with Deschutes County. Tumalo’s sandy and gravely soils drain water too rapidly, threatening groundwater and the Deschutes River.
Hard rock below Terrebonne keeps wastewater from draining properly, keeping harmful bacteria at the ground’s surface. Before environmental regulations, a common practice in Central Oregon was to drill reverse wells called drill holes to inject sewage into the ground. A few of which still exist today, Cleveland said.
Many septic systems in rural areas are too old to be repaired once they fail, and new systems are too expensive. Parker Vernon talks about the current septic system and the 2-acre field behind him where gray water leeches into the ground at the Rustic Ranch mobile home park in Terrebonne on Friday. Vernon’s family has owned the park since the early 1990s, and said the septic system has been in use long before his family’s ownership.
Vernon watched the store across from his mobile home park close due to septic issues in 2020. Another septic failure occurred that same year up the street at the Oliver Lemon’s grocery store, flooding the store’s parking lot. Failing septic system causes restaurant closure Owner Lauren Redman said the store has spent upwards of $500,000 on repairs since then.
It’s running well now, but could fail at any time, she said. ”If it fails, our business will close, our people will become unemployed and our community will be without a grocery store,” Redman said. The mobile home park is in a similar position.
“This was kind of our Hail Mary,” Vernon said of the sewer effort. “If we don’t get sewer to this area, 30 people are going to lose their place to live.” Terrebonne’s growth will likely pick up with the new sewer in place, said Vernon, who also works in real estate.
That could mean more subdivisions, higher density and different types of housing, and perhaps a hotel for tourists to nearby Smith Rock State Park, he said. But growth hasn’t been the focus of sewer efforts in Tumalo or Terrebonne, said Linda Swearingen, former Deschutes County Commissioner and consultant on the Terrebonne project. Swearingen said she doesn’t believe the new sewer systems will lead to either community incorporating, or becoming an official municipality, anytime soon.
“I think there’s going to be a big sigh of relief to residents who have substandard systems who can now work with the local sanitary district to hook up and deal with their sewer problems,” Swearingen said. “Some of these folks are frustrated because they think development is going to occur if these sanitary districts are built. That’s not the primary reason these districts have formed.
It’s to address a current issue that needs a solution.”.
