PUD adjusts water policy

Changes to the water adjustment policy were approved Tuesday morning at the Wahkiakum County PUD Board of Commissioners meeting with a 2-0 vote.

Commissioner Bob Jungers chose to abstain from the vote.

The policy allows customers to be compensated in the event of abnormal water loss. Before the change, the PUD offered an adjustment of 25 percent of the excess water, one time over the life of their account. The policy will now offer one adjustment of 50 percent of the excess water every five years.

A rate and budget hearing was on the agenda as an opportunity to hear public comment about the preliminary 2016 rates and budget. No one attended and the hearing was closed.

General Manager David Tramblie reported that the PUD was trying to complete the installation of LED street lights. The $62,000 project had a potential rebate of $23,000, according to Tramblie. He said he was switching to a drop down lens.

“It will probably reduce the negative feedback,” he said, though they haven’t had very much of that since the project started. “I’m hoping it will disperse light out a little bit more than the flat lens that I purchased prior.”

“I just wanted to give you a head’s up that the project is going to push our inventory budget a little bit above but it’s going to be offset some by the rebate,” Tramblie said. “I think we just need to move forward and get it done.”

Commissioner Dennis Reid agreed.

Tramblie also reported that the projects that they had completed on the western Wahkiakum water system were paying off. The PUD had sealed the reservoir intakes and finished a project on Shannon Road replacing water and electric lines.

“That has helped our water losses significantly,” Tramblie said. Our annual water losses have been running about 30 percent on that system. For the month of August they were down around 16 percent and September they were down around 20 percent so I think we’re making headway.

Tramblie expressed a desire to do more, but acknowledged that there wasn’t much wiggle room in the budget.

“The reserves are getting down to a level of caution,” he said. “We’re moving over to work on Puget Island for the fall, so hopefully we can build those reserves a little bit this fall.”

The water department replaced two crossings on Puget Island this week. One was completed on Tuesday and the second was scheduled for Wednesday.

“Through September of this year, Tramblie said, “water losses have been less than 10 percent on the system.”

“The guys are doing a great job of upgrading everything out there,” Tramblie added.

Auditor Erin Wilson went over the last month’s financials and the commissioners shared what they had learned in the weeks since the last meeting.

The next PUD meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, October 20 at 8:30 a.m. in the PUD meeting room.