Water Wisdoms | December 2022 Newsletter
National Award for Renewable Natural Gas Project...
It's Kind of a Big Deal
We’re excited to announce that the MWMC has been honored with the National Environmental Achievement Award for its Renewable Natural Gas project. The award is a major recognition from the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA), which is the nation’s leader in clean water advocacy.
MWMC was also honored earlier this year by NACWA and the Water Environment Federation with a Utility of the Future Today recognition for the RNG project. The award highlights utilities that work to advance resource efficiency and help build sustainable communities, some of the key goals of our RNG improvements.

The RNG system takes excess methane from our wastewater byproducts and pipes it to our partner, Northwest Natural. This reduces air pollution and helps achieve higher energy efficiency. The RNG system was launched last March and has been a huge success. We’re glad our team is receiving the recognition they deserve for all their hard work bringing the project to completion!
Pollution Solutions
The holiday season means family meals for lots of us, and cooking those delicious feasts leaves a pile of dishes that need to be cleaned too. This year, make sure to scrape and pour your fats, oils, and grease into a container that you can throw in the trash! Pouring these things down the sink is one of the most common reasons for clogs in drainage pipes, and they can also cause problems in our larger wastewater pipes and pumps. If you don’t have one, you can request a free FOG kit from us. We’ll ship you the tools you need to properly dispose of those pollutants, plus a bonus jar gripper!
How (and Why) We Calculate Your Rates in the Winter
Between the months of December and April, MWMC tracks your water usage to determine the amount of wastewater your household produces on average. That average is then compared to your actual monthly usage during the rest of the year, and whichever amount is lower is the one we apply to the wastewater portion of your utilities bill.

There are a couple reasons we do it this way. Since we don’t have any feasible way to track wastewater output from houses, we track how much water is brought in and used by the household. The winter and early spring months are the lowest usage months for most people because they’re not using water for lawns, pools, or outdoor cleaning (and that water doesn’t drain into wastewater pipes). During the summer, most households see a spike in water usage, but not all of the water usage creates wastewater, which is why we measure the average. If your winter usage is higher for some reason, don’t worry: we’ll bill you for the actual monthly usage if it’s the lower amount! We always select the amount that saves you more money.
Happy Holidays and a Special Thanks to Our Operators!
We want to take a moment to recognize our dedicated operators, who work 24/7 to make sure we have clean water. While many of us will be celebrating with family and exchanging gifts with friends, they will still be hard at work keeping the treatment plant running smoothly. Many thanks to them for their constant efforts to keep our pipes flowing with the precious substance on earth: clean H2O. And from the entire MWMC to you, happy holidays!
Share with Others
Love receiving water news and tips for protecting the Willamette River each month? Forward this newsletter to a friend or colleague to share and encourage them to subscribe to our newsletter at this link. Thanks for partnering with us in our mission to protect the community's health and environment.