Clean Water Services

In 1969, Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality placed a temporary halt to new construction in Washington County. On February 3, 1970, ten cities and sixteen sanitary districts combined to form the Unified Sewerage Agency (USA). Later that year, voters in the new district approved a $36 million bond measure to consolidate, construct and upgrade USA's regional public wastewater treatment facilities. The Durham Wastewater Treatment Facility opened in 1976, which replaced 14 smaller treatment plants. Two years later six more treatment plants were replaced with the opening of the Rock Creek Wastewater Treatment Facility.

As population continued to grow in the service area of USA, the water quality of the Tualatin River worsened. In 1986, the Northwest Environmental Defense Center filed a lawsuit against the United States Environmental Protection Agency, prompting Total maximum daily loads for the Tualatin River. A Clean Water Act amendment added regulation of storm-water runoff, and the Rock Creek Facility achieved 99% removal of ammonia nitrogen. In 1988, the Tualatin Valley Water Quality Endowment Fund was established by the Northwest Environmental Defense Center lawsuit.

USA worked to maintain the quality of the Tualatin River by establishing Surface Water Management (SWM) utility for water quality and drainage in 1990, and began a $200 million facility expansion and upgrade program to meet compliance deadlines. That same year, the agency established the River Rangers program. USA began consumption-based rates and combined billing with water providers in 1994.

In July 2001, the Unified Sewerage Agency renamed itself as Clean Water Services at a cost of $60,000. Clean Water Services' Operations Building opened in 2003, which is used as a showcase of low impact development. The same year, the Administrative Building Complex opened. It was the first LEED Gold certified public building in Washington County. In 2004, the agency began a program to add shade along the watershed's streams and river by planting trees and shrubs to lower temperatures of the waterways. This program received approval from environmental regulators and was in lieu of spending $150 million to build chilling systems at the four treatment facilities.

The agency's Rock Creek facility won an EPA National Clean Water Act Recognition Award in 2006, and in 2008 the Durham facility's Influent Pump Station was the first to earn LEED Silver certification. The following year the Durham plant became the United States' first wastewater treatment plant to produce commercial fertilizer. In 2010, the Clean Water Institute was established by the agency.

Clean Water Services provides stormwater and wastewater services in partnership with 12 member cities that include; Beaverton, Tigard, Tualatin, Hillsboro, King City, Forest Grove, Sherwood, Cornelius, Banks, Gaston, Durham, and North Plains.

Clean Water Services is a special service district that serves as a separately managed and financed public utility. The Washington County Commissioners serve as the board of directors for Clean Water Services.

As a wastewater utility, Clean Water Services cleans more than 60 million US gallons (230,000 m3) of wastewater a day. The wastewater treatment process uses physical, biological, and chemical treatment to clean wastewater to some of the highest standards in the nation. The cleaned wastewater is then released into the Tualatin River. The wastewater is collected by a vast network of more than 800 miles (1,300 km) of sewer lines and 39 pump stations and routed to one of four treatment plants—Durham, Rock Creek, Hillsboro and Forest Grove.

Ten percent of the wastewater treated by Clean Water Services is used for irrigation and in area wetlands during the summer months. Biosolids recovered through the treatment process are sold to farmers in the region as fertilizer. Additionally, the Durham Advanced Wastewater Treatment Facility is the first in the nation to recover fertilizer from a natural byproduct of wastewater treatment. In 2007 the Durham facility began working with Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies to construct a $2.5 million multi-reactor plant that allows the Durham facility to run part of its waste stream through special reactors that transform potentially damaging nutrients into environmentally friendly fertilizer, which Ostara sells commercially.

Expense Controversy

In 2016, Clean Water Services created a captive insurance subsidiary incorporated in Hawaii with no employees overseen by the agency's executives who receive an additional $60,000 each for their board service. The water agency pays annual premiums to its insurance subsidiary. Because Hawaiian law requires at least one board meeting to be held in that state per year, the agency's executives are flown annually to 5-star resorts in Hawaii for their annual meeting, with the Executive Director flying first class, with the total cost of the 2023 trip being $42,000. The Executive Director also received premium accommodations costing $6,928. Because the insurance subsidiary is based in Hawaii, The subsidiaries' lawyer claims it is not subject to Oregon's Public records law, meaning any record held by the captive can be withheld from public disclosure.