The U.S. Forest Service says it will take all summer to complete the environmental review process for the city of Bend’s $68 million Bridge Creek Water project.

“We’re looking at it being wrapped up by mid-to-late September,” Deschutes National Forest spokeswoman Jean Nelson-Dean said.

That means the city cannot begin installing a new drinking water pipeline from the Cascades foothills west of Bend until November at the earliest, said city Bridge Creek project manager Heidi Lansdowne. The Bridge Creek project will replace the current water intake facility and two old pipelines, one that is approximately 90 years old and another that is roughly 60 years old, with a single new pipe to the water treatment facility.

Lansdowne said the city is “going to be ready to start construction” as soon as the Forest Service completes the review. An open question is whether opponents of the project will once again sue to stop it. The environmental process currently underway is the second such review of the Bridge Creek project. After the Forest Service last year completed the first review, known as an environmental assessment, Central Oregon LandWatch filed a federal lawsuit against the city and the Forest Service. The city dropped its previous Bridge Creek plan and submitted a new project to the Forest Service, which is currently under review.

Central Oregon LandWatch Executive Director Paul Dewey said he is waiting to see the latest version of the Forest Service review when it comes out later this month. “We’re still very concerned about it, but what objections we’re going to have, it’s too early to tell,” Dewey said.

Currently, the Forest Service is revising its environmental review of the Bridge Creek project after receiving public comments, Lansdowne said. Nelson-Dean said the next phase, a 45-day period during which people can raise objections to the review document, will likely start in late July. The Forest Service will then meet with people who lodged objections during a period that is not to exceed 45 days, Rod Bonacker, special projects coordinator for the Bend–Fort Rock Ranger District, said earlier this year.

If the city receives the go-ahead on the project by November, Lansdowne said contractors will begin installing pipe under Skyliners Road. The initial plan was to begin building a crossing for the pipe over Tumalo Creek, but the city can only work in the stream during the summer and early fall. The city is under a deadline to install part of the new pipeline under Skyliners Road by 2014, when Deschutes County plans to rebuild the road in time to qualify for federal funding. It could cost as much as $2.9 million to resurface the road if the city misses that window, and county officials have also said they would be reluctant to allow the city to cut into brand new pavement.

“That’s really our priority now, is to be out of the road so the county can start their work plan,” Lansdowne said.

City officials do not yet know how much the delay will cost. “There will probably be an increase in costs due to not building it in the most efficient manner,” Lansdowne said. Contracts for the initial project were approximately $4 million under budget and Lansdowne expects some of those savings will disappear.

“I don’t know if it will all get eaten up, but I would say a significant portion will,” Lans-downe said.