PUD to add payment by card

Customers of Wahkiakum PUD will soon have the ability to pay their bills via credit or debit cards, PUD Auditor Erin Wilson announced at Tuesday’s PUD commission meeting.

The last step towards accepting customer payments via credit card payments is to create a PUD website, Wilson said. The PUD owns the domain name http://www.wahkiakumPUD.org but had never developed it. The commissioners approved entering into an agreement with Clear Site Design to set up the website. The site will link to a payment page that will be used to process cards. Wilson estimated the site would be operational in one to two weeks.

Commissioner Esther Gregg inquired about the status of changes to the PUD’s customer deposit policy.

Wilson responded that she will bring a proposal to the December 7 meeting and expects that her proposal will ask for a 12-month hold on deposits and allow one late payment during that time before the deposit is released.

Commissioners also heard reports on operations and safety.

PUD Manager Dave Tramblie reported a minor electrical outage occurred on Elochoman Valley Road during Monday night’s storm. He also detailed ongoing repairs on the Western Wahkiakum Water System treatment plant for problems caused by a sensor’s failure to signal reservoir pumps to turn on automatically.

Safety Contractor Greg Pierce described his work with Wahkiakum PUD. He is onsite two days a month to provide state Labor and Industries Department mandated trainings and industry best practices training for accident prevention. He noted that within the group of seven western Washington utilities he serves, 18 percent of L&I claims arise from workplace slips, trips, and falls.

Before concluding the meeting, the commissioners approved final 2011 budgets for the electrical system, Puget Island Water System, and Western Wahkiakum Water System.