Moses Lake hears from citizen on fairgrounds

MOSES LAKE - A Moses Lake resident told city council providing sewer service to the Grant County Fairgrounds shouldn't be a question of annexation.

"It's hard to believe a simpler agreement can't be reached other than annexation," Jon Smith told council members Tuesday. "What regulations bind the hands of city council from entering into a multi-year contract with the county? The city already provides the drinking water out there, why not the sewage treatment as well?"

State Department of Ecology and Department of Health representatives have suggested the county may need to install septic system monitoring wells to ensure no contaminants from the fairgrounds drain into the lake.

The city recently presented county commissioners with a redrawn interlocal agreement to annex and connect fairgrounds property to the city system, saying it could save the county money in the long run.

A long-standing city policy requires all property adjacent to already-incorporated city property to be annexed before connecting to city sewer, City Manager Joe Gavinski said in an interview Wednesday. Potable water service does not fall under the same guidelines.

The city should amend its policies and do everything it can to allow the fairgrounds to hookup to the city system, annexation or no, Smith said.

"If the existing sewage infrastructure is inadequate to carry the volume created by the fairground events, the cost of upgrades and carrying capacity infrastructure could be shared," he said. "If there is some kind of a law blocking such a contract agreement, what is it and why not work to change that law?"

Smith said if there is any future discussion of fairgrounds annexation, it should include public notice.

"It's too big of an issue to be decided on by less than 10 people," he said.

Since the county has already built its own septic system it's unlikely they'd be interested in hooking to the city sewer now, Gavinski said.

"There is nothing pending; it's a moot issue," Gavinski said Wednesday. "If anything were to happen it would be at the county request. To me, re-sending the proposal was a courtesy to pass along the latest draft just in case there was any interest in talking about it."