By Brian Mittge
OAKVILLE - A basket-carrying eagle representing the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation will soon find a place to perch.
The eagle is part of a recently designed tribal flag that will be painted on top of a new above-ground water tower being built to improve water quality and fire protection for the hundred tribal water system customers.
The 35-foot in diameter, 100-foot-tall steel structure will be twice as wide as the current water tower, a 20-year-old green edifice that will still be part of the improved water system.
The tower is the most visible part of improvements first envisioned to solve a slight acidity problem that causes water to leach out copper and lead in household pipes, said Raman Iyer, interim head of the tribe's Department of Natural Resources. Tapwater tested positive for those metals, violating water standards, he said.
They began planning to fix that problem in 1998, eventually deciding to add a new water tower to increase water pressure and allow for expansion of the tribal water system, Iyer said.
''There are a lot more people coming onto the reservation,'' Iyer said.
The expansion will also improve fire protection.
''They had very limited firefighting capacity before this,'' he said.
Having extra water pressure will provide better service for the tribe's residents, churches and administrative buildings, Iyer said, noting that the Lucky Eagle Casino has its own separate water system.
Water from two established wells will still be chlorinated to kill bacteria, and, as was once the case, fluoride will be added to strengthen teeth.
A new 30-foot-tall aerator will blow air through the water, allowing the small amount of carbon dioxide dissolved in the water to remove the acidity, said engineer Karl Johnson of Gray and Osborne, the tribe's Olympia consultants.
Construction costs are a little over $900,000. With planning and design work included, the total cost increases to a bit more than $1.2 million, Iyer said.
Most of that is being paid by grants from the federal Housing and Urban Development's Indian Community Development Block Grant, and from the United States Department of Agriculture's Rural Vital Services program, Iyer said.
The tribe will have to pay back loans of about $300,000, he said, later adding that no decision has been made yet about what kind of rate increases will be needed for the tribe's customers.
The new tribal flag will be painted on top of both towers when the new one is finished, which could be as early as August, Iyer said.
Last fall the tribe decided to hold a contest among tribal members to create a tribal flag, said David Youckton, chairman of the tribe's Business Committee, which handles day-to-day tribal affairs.
The winning design, selected earlier this spring, is an eagle holding a traditional Chehalis basket over the background of the reservation's location at the confluence of the Chehalis and Black rivers.
The tribe's current insignia, a traditional Chehalis basket, will continue to be used, but a flag with the new design will probably be flown above the tribal center, Youckton said.
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Brian Mittge covers local government for The Chronicle. He may be reached by e-mail at bmittge@chronline.com, or by telephoning 807-8237.
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