Treatment Plant Agreement
Aberdeen joins agreement on waterline - January 14, 1999
By the Daily World staff, The Aberdeen Daily World
The Aberdeen City Council unanimously approved an interlocal agreement with the cities of Hoquiam and Cosmopolis and Grays Harbor County Wednesday night that will allow them to apply for funding on the industrial waterline.
The agreement is similar to ones that led to the development of the CELL Center at the Port and the public development authority that runs the Satsop Development Park.
Lynn Micheau, assistant director of the Grays Harbor Economic Development Council, told council members that the agreement does not bind any of the agencies to pay for the $17.1 million in expected repairs or to take over the waterline.
Instead, she said it commits them to working together to find a solution to keeping the waterline, which serves industrial water to Grays Harbor Paper L.P. in Hoquiam and the Weyerhaeuser Co. mill in Cosmopolis, in good working condition.
"It's not Aberdeen's problem; it's not Hoquiam's problem. It's not any one entity alone," Micheau said. "It is a community problem."
Activists had hoped that the Grays Harbor PUD would take the lead on the waterline project, but on Tuesday, the PUD Commission voted 2-1 to reject a move to sign onto the interlocal agreement. Commissioners Howard Moe and Frank Moses failed to second a motion by Commissioner Tom Casey to continue negotiations.
In a similar vote last week, the PUD ended two years of negotiations with the City of Aberdeen to take over ownership of the 70-year-old waterline.
The County is currently leading efforts to look for funding from the state and federal governments to pay for the repairs, but Mike Daniels, director of the County's Public Works Department, has said some of the funding options will be jeopardized because the PUD isn't participating.
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