- January 19, 1999
By Ryan Teague Beckwith - Daily World Writer, The Aberdeen Daily World
For the time being, it looks like Grays Harbor County has a $17.1 million problem on its hands.
In discussions on how to fund repairs to the City of Aberdeen's aging industrial waterline, the county has emerged as the likely head of a loose coalition of local government agencies.
But what about the long term? The project's backers say the field is wide open right now - and likely to stay that way at least until repairs on the 70-year-old pipeline are under way.
"I can't tell you what it will be," said Lynn Micheau, assistant director of the Grays Harbor Economic Development Council. "I don't know that the short-term fix is going to be the same as the long-term fix."
She said there are essentially three directions the project could head, each with its own pitfalls:
For now, the cities of Aberdeen, Hoquiam and Cosmopolis and Grays Harbor County are working together under an "interlocal" agreement that pledges cooperation. Aberdeen City Council members unanimously approved the agreement last Wednesday, and the three county commissioners OK'd it this morning.
The Hoquiam City Council, which approved a similar agreement that still involved the PUD last week, will consider the new arrangement at a special meeting on the second floor of City Hall at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.
The Cosmopolis City Council is set to discuss the issue during its regularly scheduled 7 p.m. meeting on Wednesday.
The agreement is based on ones that led to the creation of the CELL Center at the Port of Grays Harbor and the formation of the public development authority in charge of the Satsop Development Park.
Like those agreements, it is intentionally designed to keep all alternatives open, since there are no guarantees on where the project may go from here.
Some have suggested the partnership follow a rough model of the way the cities of Lacey, Olympia and Tumwater work together in a group called LOTT with Thurston County on sewer issues. That would satisfy the state, which has told Micheau and others that the waterline is a regional problem.
A more formal partnership would also be a logical outgrowth of current efforts, with representatives from each governing body working together. Tom Kolby, a longtime plant manager for LOTT in Olympia, said that kind of an arrangement requires constant collaboration.
"As long as everybody is working cooperatively, it works really well," he said. "But if somebody gets upset, it's real hard to move forward under our current arrangement."
For that very reason, LOTT is considering becoming more of a regional utility as it faces a 20-year, $174 million expansion plan. Kolby said the plan is to allow all of the partners legal representation and cut down on some of the bureaucracy the agency is currently saddled with.
To the EDC's Micheau, that's a good example of why a long-term partnership is difficult. At some point, she said it may make more sense to have a utility or other agency take over the waterline.
But the Grays Harbor PUD ended two years of negotiations this month when Commissioners Howard Moe and Frank Moses declined to support involvement in the project in two separate votes. On Monday, the PUD commissioners formally ended negotiations with the city of Aberdeen.
Moses has suggested that backers look into forming another PUD to deal solely with the industrial waterline. Such a move would need to overcome major legal and political obstacles, but if formed, a new PUD would have some advantages.
If it focused solely on the waterline, the new utility would not be distracted by other issues like the City of Aberdeen has been, Micheau said. It would also be a regional authority, with the ability to tax and acquire land. And the public would have direct say in how the line is run, with elected commissioners running the utility.
Eventually, Micheau noted, a second PUD could expand into other water-related issues, much as some had hoped the existing PUD would. The Satsop Development Park, for example, has an extensive water system that is currently managed by the Grays Harbor Public Development Authority. Micheau said it may make more sense in the future for one agency to handle both waterlines.
And citizens in Ocean Shores and the North Beach area, who have been lobbying the PUD to help them solve long-term water supply issues there, eventually could be served by a second, water-specific utility.
But forming a new PUD would require a public vote, costing time and money. There would be legal hurdles as well, since state law prohibits the formation of a new public utility within the boundaries of an existing one.
That restriction was likely put in to prevent PUDs from competing with each other to provide the same service, so it's not clear whether it would be possible to form a new utility that would not deal in electricity, said Joel Merkel, a Seattle attorney familiar with PUD law.
For that reason, he said it might be easier to form a water district, a public development authority or some other form of local government to handle the issue. But given the efforts needed to start up any, he said it may be easiest to stick with what's already here.
"Finding a government authority that already exists and is willing to do it and has authority to do it is quicker, cheaper and easier than going through the trouble of forming a new agency," he said.
Backers of the waterline project agree. After all, they originally hoped to have the existing PUD work on the issue. Without it, there are only a few other government agencies left - the City of Aberdeen, the Grays Harbor PDA, which is in charge of Satsop, and Grays Harbor County.
With pressing utility problems in domestic water, sewer and storm water systems, the City of Aberdeen said it simply doesn't have the money or ability to handle the waterline on its own. State and federal agencies that could provide funding to help with the project have also said they want a more regional authority to handle the project.
The Grays Harbor PDA, meanwhile, is still in its infancy. With a nearly vacant 400-acre business park and major start-up issues to negotiate, it is not the obvious choice, many say. "They'd be foolish to take it on right now, in my opinion," the EDC's Micheau said. "But that's not to say that isn't a long-term option."
But if the PDA doesn't want to deal with the waterline, the county would likely be the last option left. PUD Commissioner Moses has said he thinks the county should have been the first choice all along because it already runs a water system.
And unlike a new agency, the county would not have to start from scratch to build up a staff and management to run the waterline. With several smaller water systems already under their control, some say the county is a natural.
But it shares many of the same problems that Aberdeen faced in the past. Like the city, the county has more pressing issues like criminal justice and land use to deal with, so there is a danger that the waterline could take a back seat in future budget discussions.
Still, Micheau said there may not be much choice in the matter. The county, after all, has the one thing that the PUD lacked - enthusiasm for the job.
"Obviously they've already expressed the desire to be the leader in making sure this project moves forward," she said. "I think they are willing to step up to the plate if necessary."
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