In this episode of 21st Century Water, we sit down with Matt Stouder, Executive Officer of the Metropolitan Wastewater Management Commission (MWMC) in Oregon, to explore how his leadership is driving operational resilience, environmental stewardship, and innovative thinking in wastewater management. We begin by learning how Matt’s rural upbringing and early exposure to water chemistry inspired a lifelong commitment to environmental protection and public service. His path from stormwater engineering to leading a regional utility reflects a deep-rooted belief in stewardship, collaboration, and giving back to the community.
We then dive into the scale and structure of MWMC, which serves about 275,000 residents across Eugene and Springfield. Despite owning over $500 million in assets and operating a major treatment plant with a peak capacity of 277 MGD, the commission itself has no employees and operates through intergovernmental agreements—Springfield handles the administration and capital projects, and Eugene manages the operations. Matt emphasizes how strategic coordination is key to balancing daily operations with long-term capital investments, especially as the infrastructure ages.
We discuss MWMC’s shift from expansion to asset renewal, including a strong focus on asset management and funding strategies. Incremental rate increases and a rate stabilization fund have helped buffer financial volatility, allowing the utility to maintain steady investment without burdening ratepayers. Matt also shares MWMC’s approach to innovation through projects like the biocycle farm, where biosolids are applied to hybrid poplar trees for local reuse, and a renewable natural gas facility that generates new revenue streams while reducing emissions.
Communication and education emerge as central themes. From community partnerships and public outreach at local fairs to an award-winning Clean Water University program for fifth graders, MWMC prioritizes transparency and awareness. Matt's engineering background doesn't limit his commitment to public engagement; instead, it reinforces it.
As we shift to environmental goals, Matt outlines how MWMC embraces a circular economy mindset. Instead of costly infrastructure like chillers, the utility addresses thermal pollution by planting trees along the McKenzie River, effectively reducing river temperatures while supporting watershed health. He also highlights how climate change is affecting local precipitation patterns, forcing the utility to adjust infrastructure capacity and operational readiness.
Looking ahead, Matt is focused on a $300 million infrastructure renewal plan, transforming biosolids into a higher-value Class A product, and potentially expanding MWMC’s services to nearby communities through regionalization. He views himself as a custodian of the system, aiming to leave the utility stronger than he found it and prepared for the next generation.
More:
Metropolitan Wastewater Management Commission (MWMC): https://www.mwmcpartners.org
Oregon Association of Clean Water Agencies (ORACWA): https://oracwa.org
Northwest Natural Gas (NW Natural): https://www.nwnatural.com
Willamette Riverkeeper: https://www.willametteriverkeeper.org
National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA): https://www.nacwa.org
Pacific Northwest Clean Water Association (PNCWA): https://www.pncwa.org
21st Century Water - Matt Stouder
Speakers: Mahesh Lunani & Matt Stouder
[Music Playing]
Voiceover (00:01):
Tremendous challenges and opportunities exist right now for our nation's water infrastructure. In this podcast, the industry's top leaders and innovative minds share their knowledge and insights for ensuring our water systems are operating safely and efficiently.
These discussions are designed to motivate and create vibrant 21st century water systems and the innovative workforce required to lead and operate them. This is 21st Century Water with your host, Aquasight founder and CEO, Mahesh Lunani.
Mahesh Lunani (00:32):
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. In this episode of the 21st Century Water Podcast, I'm joined by Matt Stouder, executive officer of the Metropolitan Wastewater Management Commission.
Matt leads a very large regional utility with over a quarter of a million residents in Eugene-Springfield area, Oregon, overseeing a very critical wastewater infrastructure. With a background in public works, Matt brings a very practical and focused approach to utility leadership.
I'm looking forward for exploring with Matt how he's investing in the long-term resiliency of this system. Welcome, Matt.
Matt Stouder (01:14):
Great to be here. Thank you.
Mahesh Lunani (01:16):
Real pleasure. So, I want to get right into it. You've studied at Oregon State, and you started in public works. What drew you into the water wastewater sector?
Matt Stouder (01:27):
Yeah, so I grew up outside of Corvallis, Oregon in a rural setting. It's about 40 miles north of Eugene. And I've always been drawn to the beauty of the natural environment. I enjoyed fishing, I enjoyed exploring the rivers and streams from a very young age.
I enjoyed being outdoors in the recreational environment, skiing and snowboarding, and playing on the water when it was higher up in the watershed, when it was frozen. And I knew early on that I wanted to be in a career that protected the natural environment.
I'm a firm believer that you expose people to the outdoors and the outdoor recreational environment. So, I want to protect it and that's where my background comes from.
So, in high school, I was fortunate enough to have a really good science teacher that got me into water chemistry and doing water testing. And I actually was catching storm water runoff, looking at impacts on aquatic life in roadside ditches.
And then I knew going out of high school that I wanted a field in water. I was thinking about environmental science; I heard about environmental engineering. I went to a few classes on that and decided that would be the major for me.
And so, what I did was I took those classes and then through college I did some environmental contracting work with a private company that worked for the Environmental Protection Agency. I eventually graduated Oregon State with both a BS and an MS in environmental engineering.
And then I knew coming out of that that I wanted to work in the public sector more so than the private sector. I was drawn to working with people. I have, my background, I really enjoy giving back to others, so I knew I wanted to be in the public sector.
I ended up applying for a job at the city of Springfield, began my career working in stormwater, spent a lot of time helping to design and then review and install stormwater treatment systems for new development to keep pollutants out of the Willamette, McKenzie rivers here locally.
And then after about 10 years I knew I wanted to move back into the wastewater field and this position became available. I did a bunch of research and homework and was lucky enough to apply for it and get it and I've been working here ever since.
Mahesh Lunani (03:28):
No, fantastic. So, it sounds like your childhood memories, your high school teacher and your public service mindset is kind of what drew you into this sector.
Matt Stouder (03:39):
Yeah, I was really fortunate early on to have that background and to have those experiences in life.
Mahesh Lunani (03:44):
Yeah. So, you are a leader at this utility. What are three things that shaped your career to get up to this point? And what led you to decide, I really want to lead a utility?
Matt Stouder (03:59):
I was thinking about this earlier. I don't know if there was ever a point where I just said I want to lead a regional utility, but it became a point in my career where I knew I could lead a regional utility.
Growing up in Oregon, I understand the importance of protecting water. I've heard it said recently that Oregon isn't really Oregon without water. The water really shapes our state. In fact, in Oregon alone, I think it's around 50% of our business is critically dependent on water. And roughly 45 to 50% of our jobs are directly related to water.
I knew I wanted to be part of that. Also, my own personal values of service and stewardship and then protecting the environment really drew me to this position to want to lead this regional utility. And then in fact, the utility itself, MWMC, is based on partnerships. We're a partnership of each Eugene and Springfield and Lane County.
I really value partnerships, and I wanted to be part of something bigger than where I was currently at. So, that was kind of a defining moment for me, is when I knew that I could be doing something more than I currently was.
And I applied for this job, and it started into something that I've absolutely loved. Basically, being able to give back to my community, work on something that's much bigger than myself, and then really being part of something that's bigger for all of Oregon. The work we do at MWMC, not only protects the local environment here of the public, but also the Willamette River, but then the rest of the state from the Willamette River on north.
Mahesh Lunani (05:22):
What stood out for me as I was researching for this discussion that collaboration is a term I can attach with your name quite a bit. And also, you appear to me, and I'm looking forward for the next half an hour discussion, you appear to be more like a servant leadership style, more of a giver.
Matt Stouder (05:43):
Definitely.
Mahesh Lunani (05:43):
Which is fantastic and it's really needed in this sector.
Matt Stouder (05:47):
Yeah, we've done a little bit of work on that and that's exactly right. The servant leadership style is something that really speaks to my personality. But having that really that public service mindset and really the responsibility that the public has entrusted us to treating wastewater is pretty critical. And the responsibility placed on us as public officials to provide that is something I don't take lightly.
Mahesh Lunani (06:08):
Right. Now, talking about your operations, obviously you are an engineer, so you probably get deep into technicalities of running the utility presumably. But what's the size of your utility? What's the infrastructure you built in place? Just get us things in numbers.
Matt Stouder (06:26):
Yeah, so I'll start off by saying that MWMC is formed through an intergovernmental partnership, the cities of Eugene, Springfield and Lane County. We started in 1977 after the passage of the Clean Water Act, and we took available federal funding that was available at the time to treat wastewater on a regional basis.
Our service area is roughly the size of the two urban growth boundaries for the city. We have about 275,000 people in our service area. We have a total asset value of over $500 million. That includes our regional wastewater treatment facility.
We have a biosolids management facility and poplar farm where we process and stabilize biosolids. That's on a 600-acre site about six miles from our plant. And then we have several large pump stations as well.
Our treatment plant is roughly the second largest in the state. We have a dry weather rating of 49 MGD, but you see on average about 25 million gallons a day in the summer. We do have wet weather capacity to treat up to 277 MGD.
In Eugene-Springfield alone, there's over a thousand miles of sewer lines. Those are managed locally. However, we have about 25 that are managed regionally and then there's 50 pump stations in the region. We operate and maintain all of those.
And we also have four large regional stations that are owned and operated by us, have about a hundred employees. Our employees run the gamuts from engineers, operators, electricians, mechanics, lab staff, et cetera. That's kind of a sense of our scale.
And I guess the last thing I'd say is we have about $45 million in revenues that we bring in for user fees. And then we have 3 to $4 million in other revenue. Our operating budget is around $48 million.
Mahesh Lunani (08:05):
Got it. Which is what I was leading up to. Where are you investing most in terms of operationally and from an invest capital planning point of view? Where's the money flowing into your business?
Matt Stouder (08:18):
We're like most utilities; we're looking to balance our day-to-day operations with our capital upgrades. It's something we’ve become quite good at overtime. It requires close coordination between Eugene and Springfield staff.
One thing I didn't mention earlier is Springfield staff does all the coordination for MWMC for administration, so that's our capital construction and planning along with our communications programs and managing our seven-member commission. Eugene does all the operations and maintenance. And so, we need to coordinate very closely amongst the two cities while we do these large projects.
So, we're really looking at moving more to investing in our assets right now. When I first started, the plant was 25, 30-years-old. It's aging, but it wasn't as old as it is now. And the focus was primarily on permit requirements and new capital work.
Now we're seeing a plant that's 45-years-old and those systems are needing to be not only maintained but replaced. And so, we've shifted our funding strategy a little bit to focus more on asset management and replacement of aging assets.
Mahesh Lunani (09:23):
So, if I understood correctly, the way you explained it, Eugene staff, the city staff, is managing your capital programs or executing and your Springfield staff is the operations program running the plant, is that correct?
Matt Stouder (09:37):
Just the opposite, but yes.
Mahesh Lunani (09:39):
It's the opposite side. Got it. That's a unique setup you have though.
Matt Stouder (09:43):
It is, yeah. MWMC owns all the assets and manages everything but actually has no employees. They contract with a few cities for all the work.
Mahesh Lunani (09:53):
Got it. Talking about rates, obviously you're a unique setup. How do you manage rate setting and budgets in this kind of environment in which you operate?
Matt Stouder (10:03):
It's becoming more challenging. Like a lot of utilities, we have a robust financial plan. We have associated policies within that plan. We really look to fully fund our equipment replacement and major assets to make sure that they're there for the long term.
Our board sets user fees annually. They've had a philosophy of really kind of small incremental rate adjustments over time, looking to avoid big spikes. A number of years back we had a really large industrial customer that stopped producing, just closed up, and it required back-to-back years of an 18% rate increase.
One of the things we did was we established a rate stability fund, put money into reserve to help offset that type of thing in the future. We've been fortunate not to need to draw into that because of these smaller incremental rate increases over time. And where we've been since 2010, we've seen on average about a 3% rate adjustment per year.
And to give context to that, our average monthly bill for sewer is $45 to $55 a month depending on the household size.
Mahesh Lunani (11:05):
Yeah, it sounds like you're just adjusting for the inflation essentially. Do you do sewer billing to all the interconnections? Do you do a billing meter in terms of what's coming from each of the cities, or you basically split based on estimated flows?
Matt Stouder (11:22):
We actually set the rates and then the cities actually collect for us. But the cities actually have an agreement with the drinking water utilities in Eugene and Springfield. So, the drinking water utilities set their own water rates, and then on that bill, the sewer rates are lifted and the customer pays the bill to the drinking water utilities. Our portion is reimbursed to us. It's based on usage. It's based on water usage.
Mahesh Lunani (11:44):
Water usage. Yeah. That's where it's pegged to water usage. Got it. And let's shift the gears a little bit on the technology innovation. There's a lot in this space going on, whether it's treatment process, technology, digital technologies, where your priorities are and the commission's priorities are in the topic of technology and innovation.
Matt Stouder (12:05):
So, it's something we've talked about quite a bit. We are always trying to balance being on the forefront of technology and innovation and being a leader versus there's always the risk of trying something and failing. So, we're sensitive to that.
But we've been out in front on a number of things. I mentioned the biocycle farm earlier. That's something that we have in addition to our wastewater facility. The biocycle operation began on our farm in 1989, but in 2000 we purchased about 600 acres at that site.
And it allowed us to do a few things. We planted hybrid poplar trees in three management units on that site. And now we land apply bios laws on those poplar trees. Basically, that's given us an insurance policy for land application. In addition to land applying and cooperative agreements with Wright grass farmers in the area.
The other thing that has allowed us to do is that not only can we apply all of our bio solids to that poplar farm for a one a two year period if needed, if something happens with our agreements with farmers, but we're getting products from those poplar trees, we're getting either construction materials like lumber or ceiling grills, or we're getting things like cardboard or paper products or chips.
And so, we're reusing that here locally in partnership with a number of businesses. Kind of moving to that circular economy model.
Mahesh Lunani (13:20):
You're saying you sell those, or you basically supply that to the local businesses, or you're actually making money out of those?
Matt Stouder (13:28):
Doing the harvest, we do a harvest every three years or so, and we've done a number of trials, we're selling it for money, but it's not paying for itself yet. But the way we're looking at it is it's a wastewater treatment process. And it's helping to offset the costs.
So, we are supplying it to local businesses. In fact, we've even used here at the local city halls, we've used some of the lumber in the city council chambers or in some of the meeting rooms, that type of thing.
Mahesh Lunani (13:53):
Yeah. So, I guess in a way, you're also in the farming business, not just wastewater treatment (laughs).
Matt Stouder (13:59):
We are definitely in the farming business. The property is zoned for farming. We're subject to the farming requirements, we have to harvest every 12 years. That's a farming requirement. If it was a zone forestry or something, we could grow other trees for a lot longer. But yeah.
Mahesh Lunani (14:12):
I'm curious, what's the land application there look like? You obviously generating sludge, I assume it's a class A, class B sludge. And for 25 MGD, I assume you're generating 20 tons, 30 tons of sludge that you haul at those farms. Is that how the process works?
Matt Stouder (14:32):
So, we have four big lagoons on site. We pump the digestive solids from the wastewater treatment facility to the bio solids facility. They sit out there for three years or so. And then we harvest them, put them on big drying beds, run them through a belt filter press and then land apply.
We're generating, I want to say I don't have the number in front of me, but it's 3 to 4,000 dry tons a year. Around 4,000 is where we're at. It's a class B product that we routinely meets Class A. We're moving towards a class A. That's where the future's heading for us.
And I would note that one of the things we're looking at, and we can talk about this a little bit later, some of our farmers are getting a little bit nervous with respect to PFAS. We have very low PFAS levels in the bile slaw. But it's one of those things where even with testing and supplying of data, the data doesn't mean that people still don't have an adverse reaction to PFAS.
And we're looking to optimize, move toward in a different direction. We've had the bio solids program for 25 years. The land applies worked well, but we can't really rely on our past successes to move us forward.
Mahesh Lunani (15:35):
Got it. Are there anything else besides the biocycle form, from an innovation point of view, that you feel you are doing that you're very excited about?
Matt Stouder (15:43):
Yeah, so for years we operated an onsite engine generator with the methane gas that was coming off our digesters. We were able to power about half the plant, but then we had about the other half of our gas was just being flared into the atmosphere. And methane's a potent greenhouse gas.
And so, we undertook a bio gas utilization study and we ended up installing a renewable natural gas system in partnership with the local gas utility, northwest natural. It's come with its own challenges. We have to operate and maintain it. And wastewater operators aren't traditionally used to operating a facility like this.
But we're now beneficially reusing our gas. We're not flaring that gas. We're producing around four to 5,000 of natural gas a month. And the good thing is that it's a $14 million project, but we're getting about $2 million in revenue annually.
And so, the thinking is not only is it good for the environment, but once it pays for itself that revenue stream is available to then help us do other things. So, we're not relying solely on just user fees for funding.
Mahesh Lunani (16:43):
Funding the project. Are you putting that purified gas back into the grid or in the natural gas pipelines for reuse in other-
Matt Stouder (16:52):
Yeah, it's going back into the grid. The brown gas, we call it the brown gas, is being used locally. And then of course the gas has environmental attributes that are worth a lot of money. And so, that's where the revenues come from.
Mahesh Lunani (17:03):
So, I'm always curious, every utility leader views their performance of the business through a set of KPI lens, whether it's environmental KPIs, operational KPIs, or customer KPIs. What KPIs matter to you the most and what do you watch for?
Matt Stouder (17:19):
Like most, we use performance indicators. We have what we call strategic pillars or key outcomes. And the three that I'll mention are really building public support and effective partnerships, communications and basically achieving awareness of what we do, who we are and what we do and the importance of what we do.
And then maximizing the reliability and useful lives of our assets. So, building support and effective partnerships. Like I mentioned earlier, the MWMC is rooted in partnerships, the partnership between the three governing agencies here locally. And we're constantly looking at ways to leverage partnerships.
We do a lot of work with great associations. Oregon Aqua is one that comes to mind. It's at the Oregon level. It's kind of like the lobbying group for local utilities and local governments with respect to wastewater, storm water. We probably contribute more to Aqua than most because of our size and the level of complexity.
But it ultimately, that ends up benefiting the smaller communities in the state. But it comes back to help us in the long run because we're effectively speaking with one voice when we're working with the state or the local DEQ here.
And then we're also quite involved with NACWA, and then the WEF affiliate, the PNCWA. And we do also partner with others like watershed councils and then actually the local environmental groups. We do a lot of work with the Willamette River keeper speaking in a different manner on things that we're — or has a different position than us.
But we feel it's important to partner with those folks so that they are aware of the work that we're doing. With respect to achieving understanding and having the public know who we are and what we do, for many years, utilities kind of operate is out of sight, out of mind, and we really can't do that anymore.
We've been in a position, and we will be in a position in the future, to ask people to change their behavior with respect to maybe what they're putting down the drain or products that they're using at home. And so, we've developed some robust social media programs and we're not only doing that, but we're really meeting our customers where they're at.
So, we do a lot of sponsorship, and we have staff out in the community. Like for example, the Lane County Fair is a big draw for folks in the communities. We're out there networking with people at the fair, as I mentioned, where the Riverkeeper has a Willamette River Festival.
We get out there and partner with them and support that and sponsor that event among others. And then I think the last thing I'll say with communications is we're really proud of this won several awards called Clean Water University. And it's really due to the good work of our communication staff.
But it's a partnership between us and the drinking water utilities. And we try to hit around half of the fifth-grade students in the whole school district using Springfield. They come out to the plant, learn about the water cycle, they go through a bunch of activities and games, and then they do a tour of the grant. So, we actually had one operator who went through that program and is now working for us.
Mahesh Lunani (20:09):
It's very interesting for me to hear how deeply, not only do you believe, but you install the communications program and from one engineer to another engineer, that's unusual. Most engineers would rather be, “Okay, well I don't want to be out there constantly talking.”
But I think it's required. And you rightfully said, we cannot be hiding behind now. We have to be on the forefront to help understand the importance of what your utility is doing, but more importantly, how relevant it is for the environment as a whole.
Matt Stouder (20:41):
Yeah, I agree with you completely. And engineers, typically the communication's not their strong suit. I'm fortunate that I actually enjoy that, and I really enjoy the three days or four days I'm out there at the plant for that event leading the kids around and seeing their eyes light up and they learn about the good work that we're doing.
Mahesh Lunani (20:59):
You are an anomaly, but in a good way, on that topic. So, talk about environmental stewardship. And you talked a lot about, hopefully I'm pronouncing this correctly, Willamette River.
Matt Stouder (21:10):
Willamette. Yes.
Mahesh Lunani (21:11):
Willamette River. So, tell me a little bit more about how and why this is important in the context of the work you're doing.
Matt Stouder (21:19):
The Willamette River is super important to a lot of Oregonians, it starts up in the Cascade Range and it runs down through, and it pretty much touches almost every major city in Oregon with the exception of a few.
And so, it's a critical water wave for the state and it falls right in line with the mission of MWMC, which is really to protect the health and safety of our community and our surrounding environment. And the river’s part of that.
One of the ways we look to do that is through a circular economy approach. And so, taking sustainable actions to help the river. I mentioned our bio solids program already. One of the things I'll mention, a unique program. I'm sure you're familiar with water quality trading.
Temperature is a pollutant of concern for us here. The Willamette River failed to meet health standards for temperature routinely in the summer. No surprise. The summers are getting hotter and the river's getting warmer.
But this goes back to that financial approach. We have a thermal load requirement in our permit. We need to meet that. We've been looking at how to do that rather than build a chiller; we wanted to take a more environmentally sound approach.
And so, we partnered with our drinking water utility, the Eugene water and electric board, and developed a program with them where we end up planting shade trees up the McKenzie River, which empties into the Willamette, it's upstream of where we are effluent discharge plant shade trees in the riparian corridor.
And we get credit for doing that from a thermal load point of view. And really that's been a kind of a sustainable action we take and that has multiple environmental benefits, well beyond a chiller for example, and helps the whole watershed.
Mahesh Lunani (22:54):
I cannot imagine a chiller bringing temperature down for a 25 MGD every day for 365 days.
Matt Stouder (23:01):
Yeah. The really challenging part is our data set, we only have this problem a few days a year. As with anything with wastewater, you can't have one ounce of overflow, or you can't have one day where you're out of compliance or one minute where you're out of compliance. Even if it's a 10-year data set. And so, that's where this really made sense.
Mahesh Lunani (23:19):
No, I did hear about the thermal loading from Diane from Clean Water Services.
Matt Stouder (23:22):
Perfect. Yeah.
Mahesh Lunani (23:24):
I remember that story. Talk about climate resiliency. Obviously, storms, floods, droughts change has a major impact. What climate changes you are seeing for your system that you have to plan some sort of resiliency activities? What exactly are the impacting factors in your case?
Matt Stouder (23:46):
Definitely locally, we're seeing some effects. Overall, I'd say year on year we're seeing around the same levels of precipitation, but we're getting, it's just different. We're seeing hotter, more intense summers than we were seeing previously with extended periods of drought. In the wintertime, we're seeing more atmospheric rivers and more water coming in the winter.
So, the same amount of water, just over a much more condensed period. And that's leading to challenges for us for infiltration and inflow and high flows. We've always had a high-water table in the winter in this area and especially in February and March, but it's caused us to do a number of things.
So, about 15 years ago, we had to increase our capacity for what we could treat. We went from a capacity of 177 million gallons a day up to 277 million gallons a day. That was a significant investment.
And despite that, this year we saw a record high flow at the plant. And this is what the city's doing a lot of INI rehab in the local plants. We had a flow event at the end of March where we saw 241 million gallons a day.
We had a very intense rainstorm that came through, dropped several feet of snow in the mountains and several inches of rain in the valley. We actually had storm water systems overflowing and running into the wastewater systems. We had to deploy our crews to go out and do some emergency work.
Basically, they had to open up a few lines. There's the river that are emergency only that we haven't had to use very often. So, we're having to adapt our operational strategies with respect to not only managing the system, but also with respect to just doing plan maintenance. When you're a big utility, you have to do maintenance year-round.
So, we might have pump station upgrades or maintenance due in the winter and we need to be careful with that because we need to have all the capacity available where we can because of these really intense rainstorms that we're getting.
Mahesh Lunani (25:31):
You got what your average 25, you can go up to 277 MGD. That's a factor of 10X.
Matt Stouder (25:39):
It is.
Mahesh Lunani (25:40):
To be able to handle just how much it needs to flex your system.
Matt Stouder (25:43):
Yeah.
Mahesh Lunani (25:44):
So, looking ahead a little bit, what are the big goals you are excited about in the coming years that you feel like you can drive at the organization?
Matt Stouder (25:55):
There's a few. The first one I'd say is we have a facilities plan that's just wrapping up and we're actually embarking on a new one. And we're about to complete that work and it's going to require us to deliver $300 million worth of work over the next 20 years here.
And that includes a heavy focus on aging infrastructure and replacing assets. And so, one of the things I'm really excited about is what I'm calling: navigating the Clean Water Act in a new age.
So, we have this tremendous challenge to basically work with a Clean Water Act that's 50-years-old, or older than 50 years, and in need of reform. And basically, we're going to be required to rebuild everything that we've already built under the act, and we have to do it under the current context.
But I think there's a tremendous opportunity to do that and build back even better with a higher level of technological innovation and optimization than we've had in years past. And that's going to help us do an even better job of protecting the environment and the river. So, that's one.
I'm excited for our bio solids program. As I mentioned, I think we need to move forward. There we're 25 years into that program of land application. As I said, we can't rely on our past successes. And so, I don't know exactly what the next chapter will hold, but I do think we need to move away from relying on others to take our product and we need to do it ourselves.
And so, we're looking at moving to a class A product in partnership with the community. We may even have a possibility of looking at something like paralysis on a regional level with some of our other partners. And so, that's something that we're studying and looking at right now.
And then the last thing I'll mention is further regionalizing. Eugene and Springfield are the two big communities here, but there's a few communities outside of our service area that have 5,000 to 10,000 people.
And they’re really challenged right now. One of the communities to the south is under a moratorium from DEQ, can't build any new homes because their system is that capacity and is starting to fail. They have a rate base of about 4,500 people and they need to invest $70 million to do upgrades or they can come connect with us and utilize our system, state of the art system.
We'd want to be compensated for that of course. But I think we have a real opportunity to not only help them out but produce better environmental outcomes in the long term, both not only for them but for us and for the river. So, those are the things that I'm really excited about moving forward.
Mahesh Lunani (28:13):
Yeah. No, this is excellent. I actually want ask you about regionalization because a couple of guests that have come on the podcast, Tony Parrott is a pioneer in regionalization in Kentucky. He’s got, I think, 16 or 17 plants now. Then Eric Johnson from Fox River from Illinois, he's looking at a regionalization concept.
And actually, at NACWA we wrote a paper. I stitched that together along with six other utility CEOs and what's called Regional Water Architect. This was five, seven years ago. So, I'm keenly interested in this because it's a pure economic and service play, purely economic and service play. Better service, lower cost.
Matt Stouder (28:58):
It's like the model that many private businesses have went to. Some of the small mom and pops don't exist anymore because of that efficiency that they've gained through doing exactly what we're talking about. Regionalization.
It's something that we do here in Oregon in a few areas. I was actually on a call recently and northwest Oregon is looking at potentially regionalizing. But I think there's tremendous opportunity for folks to do that. And I think for us to diversify and expand further, I think there's tremendous opportunity and the win is ultimately coming for the rate payers that benefit from it.
Mahesh Lunani (29:30):
Yeah, a hundred percent. I want to wrap up with one question that I always ask. What do you want your legacy to be?
Matt Stouder (29:37):
Yeah, that's a good one. What I guess I want at the end of the day is I want to be known for someone that left the community in a better place than where it was at when I arrived. I hope people think that I always acted the best interest of the public and the people that I serve, and that the decisions that I made and that we made were considering those people.
And then ultimately, I hope that people will remember that we protected the environment, and we helped improve the quality of Oregon's waterways and then establish a culture of trust and partnership that's going to be here long after I'm going.
Mahesh Lunani (30:10):
So, if I hear you, you feel yourself like a custodian-
Matt Stouder (30:14):
Yeah. Definitely.
Mahesh Lunani (30:15):
Of this. And then you want to pass it on to the next leader, but hopefully the asset is in a much better position as you pass it on.
Matt Stouder (30:23):
Yeah. That's my thinking is whenever I touch, I want to make it better than when it was before I was here. And then whoever comes after me can take that good work and continue to make improvements and make it even better.
Mahesh Lunani (30:36):
Terrific. Matt, there's so much I learned today about just how you run your business, how you think about it. You're a true servant leadership style. You love collaboration as an engineer. You clearly believe in communication to the communities.
You're looking beyond the biocycle farms that you've created already for 25 years. You're not waiting for clean water next generation Clean Water Act, but you actually want to get ahead of it and thinking about regionalization, which is absolutely critical in this country.
Thereare so many good things that I feel that I'm learning, and the audience are learning from this discussion. I've wish you all the best and thank you for being part of this podcast.
Matt Stouder (31:19):
Yeah, thank you for having me. It was a pleasure to be here and great to talk with you.
[Music Playing]
Voiceover (31:23):
Join host and Aquasight founder and CEO, Mahesh Lunani for another episode of 21st Century Water, produced by JAG in Detroit Podcasts.