Business Oregon's Infrastructure Finance Authority loaned the Oak Lodge Sanitary District $8 million from the Water/Wastewater Financing Program to help rehabilitate and modernize its wastewater treatment plant that provides services to 32,000 residents in Clackamas County. The plant was constructed in the 1960s and many of the plant systems are at the end of their useful life and will start to affect the ability of the plant to meet permit requirements.

The Oak Lodge Sanitary District's $8 million, 20-year loan carries a net average interest rate cost to the District of only 2.75% because it qualified for a special federal interest rate subsidy through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the Stimulus Act). The IFA assisted the district in qualifying for this additional federal subsidy (Recovery Zone Economic Development District Bond).

The district underwent a facilities master plan process that identified $55 million in treatment plant improvements that will be constructed over three years with completion expected by early 2013. The IFA funding will be used for phase one work including: influent pump station, odor control, electrical building, headworks facility, aeration basin, service building conference rooms, and plant entrance improvements.

Overall, the improvements are adding advanced treatment to improve water quality in the Willamette River. The improvements are expected to result in: 1) reliable and redundant process units, 2) increased hydraulic and biological capacity, 3) energy and operational efficiencies and 4) adequate capacity for the next thirty to fifty years.