Grant PUD questions Heritage Center price

EPHRATA — Some Grant County PUD commissioners recently questioned the undetermined price tag of a new Wanapum Heritage Center the utility plans to build.

The project is part of the relicensing requirement for the Priest Rapids Hydoelectric Project.

The new license was awarded last year and allows the PUD to operate its Columbia River dams, roughly 50 years after the Wanapums were displaced due to construction of the dam.

Total project estimates aren’t known because the scope of the project hasn’t been determined and construction isn’t expected to start this year, said Dorothy Harris, a utility spokesperson.

There’s a total of $20 million included in the PUD’s 2009-2012 projected budget for a new Heritage Center.

It’s possible the $1.4 million listed for 2009 may be for prebuilding work, Harris said.

During a recent commission workshop, Grant PUD Commissioner Randy Allred said he sees expenditures and budgets with bigger and bigger expenditures.

Allred added he thinks someone has gone overboard and the PUD cannot continue memorandums of agreement. He also mentioned the “sky’s the limit” when speaking of the memorandums.

Grant PUD General Manager Tim Culbertson said he thinks the utility can push the number down a lot further than $750 per square foot.

Culbertson asked commissioners to be patient as the project is going in the right direction.

Allred asked if the project involved expenditure of public money without full disclosure of what it will cost ratepayers.

He said there has always been an indirect commitment of dollars.

Grant PUD Commissioner Bob Bernd said he didn’t view the project as a gift of public funds, as the Wanapums and the utility share the Columbia River.

The Wanapums like to be able to take people for their word that the PUD would provide a new Heritage Center, Bernd said.

Grant PUD Commissioner Greg Hansen said the utility should give project planners a set amount of money and require them to build the center to match a budgeted amount.

The current Heritage Center at Wanapum Dam is roughly less than 4,000 square feet, which isn’t enough room to store the Wanapum artifacts, confirmed Harris.

Some artifacts are stored at a repository at the Wanapum Dam and several other locations.

The new license requires the PUD to ensure Wanapum cultural artifacts located within the Priest Rapids Project are properly handled and curated.

Previous commissioners have spoke of a need to build a new Heritage Center, with contracts going back to as early as 2002 for design and site selection work, Harris explained.

“It’s kind of been a two steps forward, two steps back, for some time now,” she said. “With the new license, there’s certainly more direction for moving forward and coming to decisions about what it means to preserve, protect and perpetuate the Wanapum culture and the artifacts that go along with it.”

The center’s new site is tentatively planned for an area near Priest Rapids Dam, which is south of Wanapum Dam.

A meeting was held between the Seattle architectural firm and project committee members Friday.

Representatives from a Seattle architectural firm working on the project, as well as Hydro Director Dawn Woodward, Assistant General Manager Chuck Berrie, Allred, Bernd, Rex Buck, Jr., Angela Buck, Rex Buck III and other PUD employees, attended the meeting.

Committee members are starting to talk about the project’s scope, how to determine the building’ square footage and a construction timeline, she said.

It’s not yet known when a final project proposal will go before commissioners, she said.