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Anybody wanna buy a water treatment plant? By WENDY SIPOREN TALENT -- What do you do with two used water treatment plants? That's the question city officials will face once water begins to flow through an intertie system with Medford by the end of next year. The Talent-Ashland-Phoenix project will bring reliable, quality water to this city that has been operating under a 2-year-old building moratorium because of water supply and treatment problems at its two treatment plants. The City Council decided recently not to depend on those aging plants on a daily basis for treating water once the intertie is finished. A report submitted to the council from Montgomery Watson Engineering of Portland determined that using the Medford-supplied water was by far the most cost-effective option available to the city. The annual costs of using only Medford Water Commission water were estimated at $170,000. Other scenarios with the city using some of its own water during peak demand periods were significantly higher. Using the existing Bear Creek treatment plant as an emergency backup would cost the city an additional $19,000 annually, the report said. That figure does not include the estimated $1 million in repairs and improvements needed by the plant in the next 10 years, said City Administrator Leahnette York. The $1 million would be better invested in an entirely new plant that could be operated sporadically, according to the consulting firm hired to evaluate the existing plants. "The plants are really so old and in such poor quality they would need to start all over," said Kathryn Mallon of Montgomery Watson Engineering. Mallon maintains that the reliability of the intertie system does not warrant having a back-up system. Any natural disaster such as a massive earthquake that would bring down the Medford water system would likely also destroy Talent's emergency backup system, she said. But at least one City Council member doesn't want to see the city lose the option of treating its own water or lose its water rights on Wagner and Bear creeks. "Committing ourselves to not using it at all is too much of a limitation," said Councilman Sam McCrary. At this point the city is investigating how it can maintain its existing water rights, including the possibility of leasing them to the city of Ashland. York said a final decision is yet to be made on the fate of the treatment plants. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA