On April 29, 2024, fiber optic internet was installed at the Creswell Water Treatment Plant. The Creswell Water Treatment Plant backs up to the Coast Fork of the Willamette River and is flanked on either side by Cloverdale Road and River Drive. This created a barrier to commercial installation of fiber optic internet by local area internet providers.
The City of Creswell was identified by the Oregon Legislature in the Budget Report for House Bill (HB) 5006 (2021) as a recipient of Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Funding (CSFRF). These resources were made available to Oregon projects under the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) approved by Congress to address the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
The project required a series of trenches and bores under city streets. The HB 5006 grant award of $80,000 covered the costs of the infrastructure build out and equipment required to operate fiber optic internet services. A request for proposal (RFP) process took place with bids received in August of 2022. Douglas Fast Net, out of Roseburg, Oregon, was awarded the contract to complete the installation.
Fiber optic internet will improve operations at the plant that serves a population of 5,823 residents. The old communication infrastructure with upload speeds of less than one megabyte, struggling to keep pace with modern demands, has been replaced with gigabyte (1,000 megabytes) service.
The installation also brings the availability of fiber optic internet to the City of Creswell on the eastside of Interstate 5. Prior to this project, only DSL and cable infrastructure was installed for residential internet services in this area of the city. For more information on internet service providers in Creswell, please visit the City of Creswell website at ci.creswell.or.us.