$500M water plant, now $2B

By Taxpayers Association of Oregon Foundation,

A $500 million water filtration facility was approved by Portland City Council in 2017. It has been delayed since, and has now seen the price tag jump to $2 billion.   Land-use use bureaucracy and environmental resistance has helped to balloon the price.

That is not the first time a Portland/Oregon project went over-budget.

• After spending $200 million to study the I-5 bridge over the Columbia River that was never built, the politicians 10 years later decided to try again. The cost a decade later rose from $2.8 billion (if they had built it ) to more than $7.5 billion today. For that exorbitant cost, taxpayers will see no added road capacity.

• A $790 million Portland school bond went $190 million over-budget.

• The Highway 20 Eddyville Project exceeded its budget by $200 million, costing taxpayers $350 million. That breaks down to nearly $60 million per mile.  (OPB 10/11/2016)

• The cost of the I-205 Abernathy Bridge Project jumped from $662 million to $815 million.