PUD reduces loss in water systems

Improvements on the Western Wahkiakum water system brought praise to the general manager at Tuesday’s Wahkiakum PUD Board of Commissioners meeting.

Water losses remain under 10 percent for Western Wahkiakum and Puget Island water systems, according to General Manager David Tramblie.

“I believe the Shannon Road project removed a lot of the losses,” Tramblie said. “A customer notified us of a leak located at the intersection of Altoona and Barr Road that was pretty much in a ditch.”

While Auditor Erin Wilson went over financial reports, talk again returned to Western Wahkiakum.

“We are better than we expected to be at this point because of some good decisions that the manager made,” Commissioner Dennis Reid said. “We probably expected the reserve to be more like $40,000 and because of good management it’s $63,000. We need to acknowledge that because we fully expected to spend a lot more money.”

Crews have been working on tree trimming. Commissioner Bob Jungers said he had seen them out in the Elochoman Valley.

“That’s kind of an important circuit,” Tramblie said.

In other business, Tramblie shared that he and Wilson had been researching possible security systems for the lobby and the material yard at the PUD, which would include cameras and panic buttons.

“It’s probably something that is necessary,” Reid said. “I don’t know if you’ve ever determined if we’ve had any losses down in the yard or not.”

“I don’t believe so,” Tramblie replied, “but I think for a number of reasons we probably need to move forward with it.”