Commissioners discuss insurance, bridges, etc.

Wahkiakum County Board of commissioners handled a variety of business when they met Tuesday.

The board approved amendments to a lease agreement with Hancock Forest Management that will allow NOAA Weather to install data gathering equipment on the KM Mountain radio repeater site.

The agency wants to install, at a minimum, a barometer and rain gauge, said Emergency Management Coordinator Beau Renfro.

The data will be available to the public, and forecasters will be better able to predict flood and other threats in the area, he said.

There is no additional cost to the county, he added.

Cathlamet businessman Bob Jungers asked the board what it could do to encourage Kaiser Permanente to reconsider its cancellation of health insurance for businesses and individuals in the county.

Although his firm was a long-time Kaiser member, Kaiser dropped them this year, saying changes in health care laws had changed their service area boundaries, so that Wahkiakum County wasn't included.

Jungers said he had taken the issue to the state Office of the Insurance Commissioner without success. He had also raised the issues with District 19 legislators, who said they would forward it to the insurance commissioner.

He suggested the commissioners contact Kaiser "to ask what Wahkiakum County can do to change this."

Commissioner Blair Brady said he supported Jungers's request and that he would write letters and make contacts.

Public Works Director Pete Ringen presented the annual bridge report.

"We have got a great inventory of bridges," he said. The Grays River Covered Bridge is the only bridge that scores low, and that's because of its historic structure. Wilson Creek Bridge is the next lowest, and "we'll keep an eye on it," he said.

The county road system does have a lot of bad culverts, and replacing them will be expensive, he said, for new habitat requirements call for much bigger structures than have been used in the past.

The county will replace one on Oneida Road this year, he added.

The board met with representatives of the US Army Corps of Engineers to discuss expanding public access to fishing areas along Steamboat Slough Road while a contractor is working on a setback dike for the Julia Butler Hansen National Wildlife Refuge.