Town talks to PUD about surplus lights

The Wahkiakum County PUD Board of Commissioners met on Tuesday to discuss regular business.

Richard Swart from the Town of Cathlamet was in attendance. He informed the commissioners that he had been talking to the town’s Public Works Superintendent Duncan Cruickshank and the PUD’s own General Manager, Dave Tramblie about a surplus of light fixtures that the town currently had in storage.

The town was planning to use several around the site of the former sewer lagoons and few along the wooden footbridge nearby, according to Swart. They had also approached Port 1 and Wahkiakum School District about using some on their property.

“We discussed keeping these tax-payer, payed for assets in the community,” Swart said, “and we were really delighted because we got a very positive reaction from both the school district and the port.”

The town intends to loan the port and the school a light fixture so they can experiment with them, according to Swart. The light fixtures cost $2,432 apiece, not including poles.

“I wanted to express the town’s appreciation of David’s (Tramblie) willingness to meet with us,” Swart said. “I think it’s a new day in terms of cooperation and we are looking forward to having some very nice fixtures visible and put to good use.”

Auditor Erin Wilson read General Manager Dave Tramblie’s report, as he could not be in attendance Tuesday.

According to the report, no more non-pay disconnects will happen without his approval and he will be reviewing procedures. The Malone Creek Road valve installation project had to be rescheduled when the valve turned out to be larger than noted on the map, which added $1,200 to the cost.

“Still a fraction of what he projected,” Commissioner Bob Jungers said.

AMR training has been schedule for June 16, Wilson read. Approximately 140 electric meters and 18 water meters have been installed and will be used for training.

The regional transportation office in Vancouver sent a permit request for pole installation on SR from West Deep River Road to Salme Road for the intertie project to the state’s office in Olympia, Tramblie was hoping to hear about it soon.

A half mile of new underground primary cable has been installed on East Valley Road to replace old cable and testing and calibration for the master meter that serves Puget Island was being scheduled.

During commissioner reports, Commissioner Dennis Reid said that a rate payer had approached him with concerns about low water, a concern that Reid shared.

“It appears to me that it is going to be a very low water year,” Reid said. “I have two small streams on my property, at least one of them dries up at the end of August, the first of September. One is dried up already. There might be a lot of people with wells drying up early and looking for support.”

Wilson’s travel to a financial officers’ conference in Spokane in September was approved by the commissioners.