PUD receives safety award

District lauded for keeping employees out of harm's way

Grant County PUD employees received a second-place award for safety from the Northwest Public Power Association at the Monday commissioners' meeting.

Commission President Tom Flint accepted the award from Northwest Public Power Association Safety Coordinator Gale Ham and Hydro Supervisor Marv Scott.

Flint complimented both the safety record of PUD employees and the safety officers who assure they work safely.

Commissioner Bill Bjork said employees in the hydro department did well in returning the Potholes East Canal Headworks Project to generation service after an extended winter overhaul effort.

"It was very good work, and they should be recognized," Bjork said.

The competition included 47 different utilities, who were judged on the number of injuries or illnesses reported and the number of incidents logged of dangerous work situations, Nelson Holmberg, associate editor with the Northwest Public Power Association, told the Herald in an

interview.

The PUD has won 14 safety awards from the Northwest Public Power Association, which includes about 200 utilities from the west coast and Canada, since 1988.

In a short meeting, commissioners passed no resolutions and six motions. Here are the highlights:

— Commissioners approved adding $395,242 to a contract for work done to replace Wanapum Dam turbines. The contractor, Voith Siemens, will increase its number of workers to meet a completion deadline moved up three months to Nov. 14, 2004.

The goal of pushing back the date, according to PUD spokesman Gary Garnant, is to complete turbine startup testing and release the machine for testing with spring downstream fish migration that begins in mid-April.

— Instead of saying they can't, commissioners called for more cans. Portable toilet facilities were approved for inside the Priest Rapids Hydroelectric Project for recreation users and PUD crews. South County Septic of Mattawa will provide the toilets for three years at a cost not

to exceed $50,000.

— Commissioners approved a motion to allow budget personnel to move budgeted funds from closed to active accounts as long as the intent of the budgeted funds does not change.

The goal of this motion, according to Garnant, is to allow PUD accountants to transfer funds from completed projects without having to come before the commission every time.