Perhaps tourism can pay for sewage plant

To the Eagle:

Down here in the steaming jungles and primordial swamps of Puget Island, we have very primitive sewer systems. Our own has a total of about 20 feet of pipe, which dump waste into a tank where it is viciously attacked by anaerobic bacteria that reduce it to fertile slurry that flows into an underground irrigation system fertilizing our lawn. Makes us jealous of our neighbors in Cathlamet who have this ultra-modern system with miles of pipe and huge pumps to send the waste uphill to a scenic mountainside aerie where a multi-million dollar plant processes waste so well that only a few trucks per year have to be dispatched to the hinterlands in search of a dumpsite for the residue.

But we island denizens need to be humble -- we are simple agrarian and retired folk who haven't the means to support the highly trained management or policy-making boards required for such a modern facility, much less maintenance costs of such a hi-tech venture. And we admire the panache of the urban elite of Cathlamet, their monthly sewer tariff already in the hundred buck neighborhood, now bravely contemplating a 40 percent increase.

A decade or so ago, our then powerful and imaginative economic development c ouncil held a dog-and-pony show downtown in the interest of turning our waterfront into condos and shopping centers to finance a membrane/osmosis sewer plant. The loyal opposition argued it would be better to confine the sewer service area to the hillside of downtown Cathlamet, refurbish the sewer lagoon to handle it, and put everyone else on well-constructed septic systems. That plan died, the opposition ignored, and that solution is no longer viable since the sewer lagoon is now defunct.

But all is not lost -- the answer is tourism! We could give guided tours of our rare uphill-oriented, gravity defying sewage plant with its unique sewer-to-nowhere Boege road extension, and use the admission fees to defray the operating costs. And perhaps, under new management, our community center could give some fascinating courses in outhouse construction.

Howard Brawn

Puget Island