PUD: Residents should take lead in water expansion toward Salme Hill

Water, water everywhere, but when do we get ours? Grays River resident Bob Larson on Tuesday asked the Wahkiakum PUD if they would provide water for a new district residents are working on creating west of Deep River Bridge and roads connected to SR4.

Larson requested a letter from commissioners that could be forwarded, “to whom it may concern,” stating the PUD’s intent to provide the water necessary with adequate flow to the district when it becomes reality. He also asked for the PUD to maintain the system once it is in.

Commissioner Esther Gregg responded that the major hurdle with the situation is potential users were either unable to participate or chose not to due to the cost of forming a local utility district.

A letter would be needed by next week for assurance of the intent, Larson said.

“The financing has been assured for this project,” Larson said.

A meeting to discuss the future of the project will take place sometime in mid-April.

Manager Dave Tramblie said his concern is to make sure the PUD understands the quantity of water required and if have the capacity in the system. He said he would need to check with his engineer on the issue. Tramblie said he needed more information, such as an area sketch showing where the pipe would be.

Larson said it would be up to the designer, but gave no indication of who that would be.

“It will be put out for a bid,” he said.

Gregg said before anything could happen, they would need to know the amount of hookups there would be before providing a certain amount of water.

For the past three years, Gregg said, the board has discussed the best way to provide water to the group in question. The PUD is unable to finance the project, she said, and the users seem reluctant to take the financial responsibility.

Commissioner Bob Jungers said the PUD isn’t in a position to maintain a water system they don’t own.

“We can maintain what we own, but we can’t act as a maintenance contractor for another system.”

Gregg told Larson it would be in the best interest of the users to form a local utility district (LUD), finance it through their own and public funding, put in a system, and turn it over to the PUD for maintenance.

Jungers compared it to a land developer who builds a housing development with roads to the county’s specifications so that the county will take over maintenance of those roads. But it wouldn’t work for the developer to expect the county to maintain those roads while not maintaining ownership.

If the PUD owned the system, “then we would be willing to take it over and maintain it as our own, but doing it on a contractual basis to another … organization, I see nothing but problems with that,” Jungers said.

It would be more expensive to maintain a system privately owned, he added.

Jungers apologized and said they would look into alternatives, but the proposal brought to the board needs to be reviewed, and more information is needed.

A letter “to whom it may concern,” isn’t adequate in this situation, Gregg said, “it has to be more precise than that.”

Larson feared the system is dead, but Gregg assured him it is not. She told Larson the group needs to submit a letter to the commission stating definitive information.

“That is the way business is done,” she said.

The furthest the commission could go with a letter, Jungers said, is one stating there is a certain amount of capacity that could be available.

“We aren’t going to agree to sell that water at a point of sale as a manufacturer,” he said.

In other business, the power failure that affected part of Main Street, Columbia Street and the elementary school last Thursday was due to a broken fuse, Tramblie said.