Meet a wastewater operator keeping the Willamette River clean from sewage

“Can I show you something really cool?”

Kevin Kline, a wastewater treatment operator for the city of Eugene, opened a door to reveal a steep concrete staircase descending into darkness. 

The cavernous sub-basement is deep in the bowels of the city’s wastewater treatment plant off River Road, where millions of gallons of wastewater from Eugene and Springfield are treated before being discharged into the Willamette River.

This underground room is one of Kline’s favorites at the plant. It holds a wet well that collects solids drained from the treatment tanks above, and decades ago, it was considered the lowest point in Eugene. The air was cool and quiet, except for echoes ricocheting off the walls. 

“I’ve actually always wanted to record a band down there,” said Kline, 42, who sings and plays guitar and bass for a couple of “obnoxious punk bands” in his spare time.

When he’s not jamming out, Kline works alongside 70 to 80 other workers to keep the wastewater treatment facility running for its 240,000 customers in Lane County. The plant is essentially an enormous biological machine, operating 24/7 to treat an average of 35 million gallons of wastewater every day in four stages. 

“Figuring out what is inefficient and trying to correct that or at least make it better, that’s what I love about this job,” Kline said. “It’s just like these little things that you can make work better. There’s a manual for all of the equipment, but being an operator, your job is to kind of figure out exactly how you can make something work the best way.”

The process begins with pretreatment, where filters remove debris, grit and other large material from the incoming wastewater.

Next comes primary treatment, in which heavier solids settle to the bottom inside clarifiers, while lighter material and scum float to the top and are skimmed off.

Secondary treatment uses oxygen-loving bacteria to convert the remaining dissolved organic matter and fine particles in the water into solids that can be removed. 

In the final stage, workers disinfect the water with sodium hypochlorite, or bleach, and add sulfur dioxide to dechlorinate before it flows into the Willamette River. The plant has been issued a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permit by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, which regulates the plant.

The sludge (what Kline called “all the nasty stuff” that settles at the bottom throughout the process) goes to anaerobic “digesters” kept at about 98 degrees to cultivate microorganisms that break down organic material and produce methane.

‘Making sure everything’s working correctly’

In operations, Kline’s primary responsibilities are monitoring the system, diagnosing problems and delegating the implementation of the solutions to other workers. On a given day, he might begin work between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. and work until 2:30 p.m. or 4:30 p.m., primarily within the secondary and final steps of the treatment process. 

“The chemistry we’re looking at, we’re looking at our blowers going in the aeration basins, we’re monitoring all the equipment, making sure everything’s working correctly, nothing’s vibrating, falling off the walls, that kind of stuff,” Kline said.

One example of the fine-tuning Kline does: He samples the sludge settling in the clarifiers to measure how much is solid material versus water. He then adjusts the pumping so the digesters receive a concentrated sludge stream, minimizing the energy needed to process and heat excess water.

“We’re saving or wasting energy depending on how much water content is actually in the sludge that’s being pumped out of it,” he said.

Another is determining precisely how much hypochlorite, which is delivered to the plant via truck every week, to add to the water for disinfection. One truckload of the chemical costs at least $10,000, Kline estimated, adding that its price and supply has fluctuated since the supply chain problems that emerged during the pandemic.

Originally from Southern California, Kline worked as a bicycle mechanic and aerospace machinist before being laid off multiple times during the recession, which pushed him to find a line of work with more stability.

He was recruited to work in wastewater for the city of Salem before moving to Marion County and then, in 2021, Eugene. He enjoys working in an environmental field that combines his roots as a mechanic with skills in chemistry, biology and math. 

“I love doing this work,” Kline said. “I don’t know if I could do another job now at this point.”

Kline is a city employee in Eugene’s Public Works department, but his work falls under the Metropolitan Wastewater Management Commission, an intergovernmental partnership formed in 1977 between Eugene, Springfield and Lane County. 

Under the partnership, Eugene operates and maintains regional wastewater facilities like the treatment plant at 410 River Ave., a heavy industrial site in an otherwise grassy, undeveloped area near River Road bordering the Willamette River. Families of nutria and raccoons frequent the plant, Kline said. By night, it falls quiet as day-shift workers go home, he said. 

“There’s way less people here,” he said. “It’s kind of beautiful.” 

‘Cascading effects’

He said adaptability is the most important part of his job, which fluctuates as the seasons change. Now, in the summer, the plant might treat 30 million gallons of wastewater per day; during peak wet weather in the winter, it treats more than 200 million gallons daily. Storms “stir everything up,” he said, bringing more rags, grease and other waste that needs to be filtered out. 

“We work crazy hours, and especially when these circumstances — ice storm, weather — all that stuff’s related to our job, and even down the line, natural disaster stuff,” he said. 

The ice storm that came to Eugene in 2024 was an “eye-opener” for Kline, as many wastewater treatment workers who lived outside the city couldn’t drive to the plant, leading employees to coordinate shifts, carpool and work longer hours to keep it running. 

Then, after the storm, everything melted at once, he said. Crews scrambled last-minute to handle the flow as it surged from roughly 14 million gallons to 140 million gallons within just a couple of hours.

“It was very, very prudent that we got in here and were able to make things work when that all went down,” he said.

If the plant were to ever stop functioning correctly, and fall out of compliance with its regulatory standards, sewage would flow into the Willamette, which serves as a drinking-water source for communities downstream. There were sewage spills into the river in Salem as recently as December 2025, and in Oakridge in June.

“There’s cascading effects to anything that happens,” Kline said.