Local ham radio operators develop emergency grid

Local ham radio operators are developing a network to serve regional emergency communications.

Ham radio operator Ron Kimmel described the network to Wahkiakum County Commissioners Dan Cothren, Blair Brady and Lisa Marsyla on Tuesday.

In other business, commissioners agreed that county officials and diking district officials need to work out an inter-local agreement for a surplus excavator which the county is offering to sell to them.

Sheriff Dan Bardsley said Kimmel and other ham radio operators have installed repeaters and obtained other equipment that can be used in times of disaster, such as when a wind storm cripples normal radio or telephone communications.

Kimmel said ham operators are all amateurs because they don't take money for what they do, but they are highly skilled radio operators. He and a group of local hams have installed a repeater on Nicolai Mountain in Oregon and have worked on other equipment. Using similar equipment which other operators have set up along the coast, they should be able to communicate directly with Washington State Emergency Services at Camp Murray near Tacoma, he said.

"It just needs to be tested," he said.

Commissioners thanked Kimmel and the other hams for their work. Commissioner Marsyla offered to work with them to make an equipment fund grant request to the Bradwood Landing Foundation.

The commissioners and Gordon Oman of Consolidated Diking District No. 1 of Puget Island discussed the excavator purchase.

Earlier this year, the county announced the excavator is surplus equipment, and the diking district commissioners said they would like to obtain it to use to clear brush along their dikes. Commissioner Blair Brady suggested the machine be made available to all diking and flood control districts in the county.

Oman said representatives of all those boards have met and come to an agreement on how they would use the machine.

The districts would collect fees for when they used the machine, and the money would be placed in a fund to maintain the machine.

Commissioner Marsyla said she wanted to see an interlocal agreement drafted that would spell out the rates and maintenance. Oman said he would meet with Prosecuting Attorney Dan Bigelow and other county officials to draft the agreement.

In other business Monday:

--The town should be ready to go to bid on two water main projects in August, said Ken Alexander of G&O. Work would occur along Columbia Street and SR 4 in Rosedale.

--The council awarded a bid for a structural review and remediation design for the Old Fire Hall Building to Kramer Gehlen Associates of Vancouver. The firm bid $16,000 for the work; Gray and Osborne bid $16,750.

--The council agreed to allow the Lower Columbia Economic Development Council to take the lead in researching existing wind speed studies before contacting a firm for a proposal to install an anemometer on town timber land on Bradley Mountain to gather wind speed data for a possible wind farm.

--The council rejected a proposal from the mayor to contract with Jerry DeBriae Logging for burning slash on the waste water treatment plant site.