Port of Mattawa receives $1.8 million

Money for industrial wastewater facility

By Matthew Weaver

Herald senior staff writer

MATTAWA - Funding by the state's Community Economic Revitalization Board will boost economic growth for the Port of Mattawa.

The state Community Economic Revitalization Board recently gave $1.8 million in grants and loans to the port district for construction of an industrial wastewater treatment facility.

Port Manager Bob Adler said the facility is currently in the permitting stage.

"We anticipate starting construction in June," he said. "We would like to have it done by the first in October. Pretty aggressive, but everybody's on board with this and I think it could possibly happen."

The new facility supports the retention and expansion of two resident companies, Flanagan and Jones Inc., and Wahluke Wine Company, helping them keep 35 full-time jobs and potentially create 33 new ones.

"We feel this will be the catalyst to the future economic development in our community," Adler said.

The new facility services all of the port's industrial properties.

"This facility will be able to support all four of our industrial parks," Adler said. "So any customers, no matter which industrial park they're on, as long as they're permitted by the Department of Ecology, they will be allowed to discharge to the wastewater system."

Adler stressed the waste-water is strictly industrial and not sewage.

"A sewage treatment plant is designed to treat digestive waste," he said. "An industrial wastewater system treats undigested waste. That's the difference between the two."

The CERB funds are matched by $450,000 in local funds.

Adler believes the port's next move is to create a public water system on the district's Industrial Park No. 4, which will service parks no. 2 and no. 4.