PUD plans meeting about Skamokawa water system plans

The Wahkiakum County PUD Board of Commissioners met on Tuesday morning to listen to reports and to pass a resolution to give the general manager a 3 percent cost of living adjustment.

General Manager Dave Tramblie reported that the PUD had expended almost all of their conservation funds for the biennium and that new funds will become available in October.

“I think we’ve done a good job of getting projects out to people who are willing to do them,” he said.

A meeting to discuss a project to expand the water system with customers in Skamokawa is tentatively scheduled for April 25 at the Skamokawa Grange Hall.

“I think it is important that all of you are there,” Tramblie told the commissioners. “Mike Johnson has agreed to attend and give his perspective on the project and answer any engineering questions.”

Johnson is an engineer with a consulting firm, Gray and Osborne.

The project consists of two parts, one to extend the water main from the Skamokawa Fire Hall through Sleepy Hollow and the second to extend it out to Dan Silverman’s nursery.

In broadband news, Tramblie said that he had signed an agreement with Noanet to provide consulting services to study the potential for the high speed internet project.

The next step will be to sit down and talk about their visions about the project and make sure they are in agreement.

“We are moving forward,” Tramblie said.

An outage on Monday provided the PUD another opportunity to improve their system a little more.

The PUD received a phone call about a limb burning in the Flandersville area. When they arrived, they found a limb on a telephone line, and it wasn’t burning. They removed the limb and went home. Later that night, around 10:15 they received a second call. A fuse had tripped. The crew returned to the scene. It was in the same area as the earlier call.

“I think what happened was that someone saw the burning and someone got out there but it quit burning,” Tramblie speculated. “They removed it. But it had burned up and opened up a fuse eventually. So we’re going to do some investigating today.”

He plans to repair the line so it won’t happen again.

“We lost a number of customers when we shouldn’t have,” Tramblie said. “It’s one of those areas where our system isn’t perfect and when things come up we’re going to fix them.”

In other news, crews are back to tree trimming on the highway. Puget Island water consumption was up about 10 percent over the weekend, likely due to the nice weather. And several vehicles were abandoned at the Deep River booster pump last week.

The PUD borrowed some signs that indicated that they would tow any vehicles left on the property on Friday. By Monday all but one of the vehicles had been removed.

Finally, commissioners approved a 3 percent cost of living adjustment for Tramblie. He will receive $11,536 per month, retroactive January of this year.