The original Citizens For Safe Water site documents strong differences that arose in 1999-2002
between promoters of drinking water from the
Willamette and citizens of several southwest Washington County
areas who objected to the Willamette as a polluted drinking
water source.Citizens For Safe Water (CFSW) was formed to give consumers a direct voice in these issues. As a result in Sherwood and Tualatin, citizens voted down revenue bond issues to fund connections to the Willamette by margins of 85% and 74%.
In four cities, CFSW sponsored city charter amendments to require a vote of the people before going to the Willamette. CFSW circulated initiative petitions to amend the city charters, and obtained enough signatures to hold elections. In Tualatin's case, the city council called for the election after citizens obtained a majority of the signatures needed.
The elections were held, and the charter amendments overwhelmingly passed in Tigard, Tualatin, Sherwood, and Wilsonville, again by margins of 80% or more. Tualatin Valley Water District commissioners followed suit by passing a similar ordinance, but only after Citizens filed an initiative petition to force a vote and elected two members to the District board.
Wilsonville officials claimed a separate bond issue passed in the same election satisfied the newly required vote for the Willamette. A court challenge followed and by the time it was resolved, the Wilsonville plant had already been built.
(At that time, a primary supporter of Willamette drinking water was the Willamette Water Supply Agency or WWSA, a forerunner of today's Willamette River Water Coalition, also known as WRWC. WWSA was the subject of various complaints to the state Elections Office for its inaccurate claims during election times. The state elections office chided WWSA for its erroneous work at that time.)
That was Part One of the story through 2002 and is documented on our original site. In 2001, two of our members were elected by an irate public to the Tualatin Valley Water District board of commissioners. That slowed the District's push to the Willamette somewhat. But only temporarily...