Stormy weather not so bad for PUD

Scott Wilson, a senior account executive from Bonneville Power Administration, attended Tuesday morning’s Wahkiakum County PUD Board of Commissioners meeting. He spoke at length about the PUD’s contract with BPA and the current rate case and answered commissioners’ questions.

General Manager Dave Tramblie gave a report about the PUD’s work over the stormy weekend. The weather was not nearly as bad as had been expected, but crews were still busy.

“We had a little bit of wind Friday and Saturday,” Tramblie said. “We had a number of outages across the county. We were shorthanded, so he water guys stepped up and helped us out.”

He estimated that employees worked eight hours on Friday and again on Saturday, just dealing with power outages and downed trees. He believed that the longest outage was on Puget Island and lasted two and a half to three hours.

Tramblie shared some good words from the Department of Health in a recent report on teh Puget Island Water System.

“Distribution system leakage has continued to decline since 2011,” a sanitary survey report regarding Puget Island read, “Keep up the good work.”

A resident had approached Tramblie about the possibility of the PUD holding one of their public meetings after a senior lunch on the Westend.

“I would be in favor of that,” Commissioner Dennis Reid said. Commissioner Jungers agreed.

A meeting will be scheduled.

Tramblie said that he expected the new Automated Meter Reading water meters and electric meters to arrive soon.

Finally, he reported that he had learned about a tool that might be useful for the PUD--electronic mapping. According to Tramblie, entering all of the PUD’s equipment and information into the field would be time consuming but the resulting applications would be useful.

“I would be able to pull a map up and see where our infrastructure is,” Tramblie said, “and probably be able to do an estimate from the office. It would be a good tool.”

The commissioners approved a resolution to adopt the summation segment of the interlocal agreement with the Town of Cathlamet to establish cost of production and basic rate for 2017 and lump sum adjustment factor for 2015-2016.

The commissioners also approved travel for Auditor Erin Wilson to attend a November Washington Finance Officers Association Governmental Accounting training in Tacoma.