The city of Bend has prevailed in a legal challenge brought against its plans for expanding its water system.

In a ruling Sept. 12, the state Land Use Board of Appeals rejected five arguments raised by Central Oregon LandWatch, a Bend-based organization and frequent critic of the city’s land use and infrastructure policies. LandWatch has been a leading opponent of the city’s Surface Water Improvement Project, a $68 million proposal to construct a new pipeline to transport water from Bridge Creek west of Bend to the city’s water treatment facilities.

The group appealed a city amendment to the Bend Area General Plan that adopted a water public facilities plan. City Council approved the change in April, replacing a water facilities plan that LandWatch had successfully challenged before LUBA the year before.

Paul Dewey, executive director of Central Oregon LandWatch, said Thursday his organization has not yet decided if it will file an appeal of the most recent LUBA ruling with the Oregon Court of Appeals.

In the arguments considered and rejected by LUBA, LandWatch asserted the city failed to demonstrate when proposed expansions to the water system would be needed and how the city would pay for them, and that some expansions were designed to serve properties outside Bend’s urban growth boundary.

Dewey said he still contends that when the time comes to expand the urban growth boundary, property owners closest to the water upgrades the city has planned will unfairly benefit.

By accepting the city position that utility fees and system development charges levied against new construction will pay to expand the water system, LUBA has allowed the city to avoid specificity, Dewey said. If Bend residents were better informed of the cost, they might take a more critical view of the city’s proposals, he added.

“It’s one thing to say that rates and SDCs can pay for it, but what are those rates and how much are rates going to have to increase, or how much are SDCs going to have to increase,” Dewey said. “And LUBA essentially said, ‘You don’t have to show that.’”

Assistant City Attorney Gary Firestone said the idea that water system expansion is intended to serve properties outside the urban growth boundary is unfounded.

The higher-capacity pipes are designed to serve anticipated higher density development in areas near the fringes of that boundary, he said, not future construction currently on the other side of the line.

“It’s not impossible that in some point in the future that water will flow through pipes, valves, pumps, whatever we put in, that will end up outside the current urban growth boundary,” he said. “But are they planned for that? No, they’re planned for future residents within the urban growth boundary.”

Dewey said LandWatch is anticipating a ruling from the U.S. Forest Service later this fall that could provide it another avenue to challenge the surface water project.

LandWatch submitted its objections Sept. 9 to the Forest Service environmental assessment of the project, he said, starting a 45-day clock for the agency to respond.

The Forest Service response will come in the form of its final order, either granting or denying the city’s request for a permit to build the Bridge Creek pipeline, which can in turn be appealed in federal court.

Firestone said the city expects the legal wrangling over its water projects will continue.

“It’s going to take some time for it to resolve,” he said.