Warden uses grant writer for lift station

WARDEN — The city and Port of Warden are seeking a grant to pay for a wastewater lift station for the industrial wastewater plant.

The roughly $472,000 station will take the wastewater from Washington Potato, Ochoa Foods, Simplot Fertilizer, Pureline Seeds and Columbia Seed to the industrial wastewater plant. The water is currently stored in an evaporation lagoon, according to a Strategic Infrastructure Program grant application.

“The (Washington state) Department of Ecology will require the current discharge go to the new system,” the application stated. “In addition, the port and (the) city own and plan on developing land along Basin Street that will be served by this sewer line extension.”

Mayor Roldan Capetillo told city council members Port Manager Bob Whitaker met with Resource Solutions, a Leavenworth -based grant writing company. Quincy and Grant County Fire District 3 have hired the company during the past two years to write grants for their projects.

“She writes grants for cities, for school districts, for whoever needs them and she charges for doing this,” Capetillo said. “She has a 95 percent grant writing success rate.”

The company doesn’t receive every grant, but does get some kind of money for the projects, he said, adding since the project can fit a variety of criteria it increases the odds of finding money.

“She charges anywhere from 1 to 3 percent of the total grant (received),” Capetillo said. “Whatever that comes out to the port is willing to go half and the city will go half. They just want to know whether you want to go in together or not.”

If the city doesn’t receive the grant, the company would receive $75 an hour.

“To me it’s an investment. Even if you pay her $75 an hour for 10 hours of work, it’s still $150 for her to come and say this is what I can do for you guys,” he said.

Councilmember Tony Massa questioned whether the city could get the funding through the Strategic Infrastructure Program. The program awards grants to projects promoting economic development in Grant County and is funded through a refund of the state’s portion of sales tax from the county. The project received a $28,800 grant in 2008 from SIP for to pay for the design of the lift station.

“SIP didn’t spend a dime of last quarter’s money,” he said. “So there’s a ton of money sitting at SIP and I don’t know if that money would be easy for us to get and then write a grant for some more … If we can prove that this thing creates jobs it’s a fairly easy grant to get.”

Capetillo questioned whether Massa would agree to do both, because the port can’t afford the lift station by themselves.

“We will be going back to SIP because we went over budget on the engineering,” City Administrator Mike Thompson said.

Massa said his thought was to try SIP before paying for someone else to hunt for grants.

Thompson asked if SIP would give the city the entire $472,000 for the lift station.

If the city and port received the full amount it would be the most the program has awarded to a single project in a single payment, according to Grant County records.

Capetillo said the decision could be delayed, but the longer the city waits the less money will be available.