February 20—MATTAWA— On Thursday, Jamin Ankney, a civil engineer with Gray and Osborne, told the Mattawa City Council about the money the city got for two water system projects. The council also approved two design contracts with Gray and Osborne.
The first grant was given by Mayor Maria Celaya through the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund.
“We have $7.2 million,” she told him. “We don’t know how much of it’s a loan and how much of it is a grant.”
“You’ll get some grant money.” They don’t know how much yet, though. “It seems like a good package of funds,” Ankney said.
Ankney said that the money will be used to improve a number of wells and the water system as a whole.
A deal with Gray & Osborne for the city’s Sewer System Improvement Design was also talked over by the council. The Portage Avenue Lift Station will be taken out and replaced with a system in a different place that makes better use of gravity to cut down on spills and make the wastewater system work better. On the contract, it says that the project plan will cost around $207,000.
Celaya went into more detail about the money the city got for the project.
“Last week, the Public Works Board met to talk about the Portage lift station.” The grant amount has grown to $2.1 million, which means the loan amount has shrunk to $381,000 ”
Celaya said the city needs to decide soon if it will take out the loan and how it will pay it back.
Ankney said that the project would need rights to go ahead because the wastewater additions would go through a lot of private land. He also said that putting in the sewer might make room for new build-outs in Mattawa.
“We don’t anticipate that the easements will be difficult — they’ll increase the property value for those farm parcels as this will make them easier to develop — but it does take time to get the easements and for the city to get the signatures on the easements,” said Ankney.
The council agreed to both contracts with Gray & Osborne so that the water capacity study and the lift station elimination project could go forward.
Ankney said that the city also just sent the Washington State Department of Health its plan for the water system.
“The good news was they approved your water system plan,” said Ankney. The bad thing was that they set link limits that were tighter than you thought they would be. We’ve met with them more than once, once at City Hall and again in a follow-up Zoom meeting to talk about it and try to make the city’s case. In the end, they say the best thing for the city to do is to do a capacity study that adds up the city’s water use from 2023 to previous years and shows that there is room for more connections.
Ankney said that the capacity study is pretty easy and won’t take long to do. According to the deal, the cost will be $21,000, and Gray & Osborne can’t go over that amount without written permission.
“Barely any of your connections were taken,” Ankney said. “Obviously, there are a lot of projects going on at the moment, so the goal is to do this capacity analysis and make sure there are enough connections for all the growth that is already happening.” You’ll have well over two online by next year, and then you’ll have a lot of growth.”
Ankney said that the city should have enough space in the end to let housing projects that are already under way go on.
“We have some of the data already … we’ve already looked at it,” said Ankney. “Adding the 2023 data should make a few more connections make sense because it makes your case stronger, not weaker.” All of them should be taken care of by the time they’re ready to physically join to a house.
