Moses Lake moves forward with decant station
Jennie Sloane asks the Moses Lake City Council to delay building the decant station.
MOSES LAKE - The Moses Lake City Council approved starting on its decant station, after a final appeal from a resident living near it.
The council approved a $236,798 bid from Central Washington Excavating of Moses Lake to build the three-bin station. It replaces an existing concrete pad used to dry debris from the roads and catch basins before it is taken to the Grant County landfill. The engineer's estimate for the project was $281,122.
Municipal Services Director Gary Harer said they decided to remove the landscaping portion of the contract, since people came up with different ideas to landscape the Road 4 Northeast facility to help alleviate issues raised by residents living nearby.
"We'll bring it back with some more information next council (meeting,)" he said. "So, we'll start deciding what is the best method to screen the operations facility."
Jennie Sloane, a resident living across from the facility, said she realizes the process is moving forward as planned and it's frustrating as a citizen to come into the process late.
"I do have some additional information that I could share about reasons why I feel like it should either be moved further to the back of the property or elsewhere," she said. "This may not be discussed any further, but if any of you do still have reservations ... if there is any way to postpone it long enough to be sure that there's no other options ..."
Sloane previously brought up concerns about the noise of equipment at the facility, smell and dust.
Councilmember Dick Deane toured the facility, saying staff members told him they plan to put a new water pipe to the facility for spraying to keep down dust.
"I did walk the ditch today and there was no water in (there). There was very little smell. The wind was blowing," he said.
Councilmember Karen Liebrecht asked how moving the decant station further back on the property would affect the bids.
"If it was pushed back further to the west, towards East Broadway (Avenue), then we would be taking a larger piece of property. It would be very cumbersome to lease that out," Harer said. "If we pushed it further to the south, we took a look at that ... we don't know what we're going to be doing with that property. We do know that the complex is going to expand and parks, streets and equipment rental and maintenance are in that complex."
Harer said city staff did look at placing it at the southern end of the facility, but it would interfere with any expansion further south.
Councilmember David Curnel said the city hurt the property values of residents in the area of the facility when it was built. He called adding to the damage the city did by building the facility, "immoral."
"I can tell you I wouldn't live there," he said. "I don't know how many of you have been out there and have actually seen the house, but this property is there and we have the facility there and obviously we aren't going to move the facility, but I don't know why we want to compound things and make things even worse with more trucks going out there."
Mayor Jon Lane said the city bought the property in 1953 and the city intended to put something on it. When the city decided to move its facility from downtown, the council felt it was a good decision to move to the property.
The conditions at the previous facility were pretty bad and it needed to move, he said.
"It is adjacent to a municipal airport. The municipal airport is a light industrial application," Lane said. "It's always difficult when you have a light industrial butting up against a residential (area.)"
The mayor pointed out Sloane lives in a rural area, where people can keep sheep, pigs or other possible nuisances. He said the city wants to be good neighbors, but not at the cost of being good stewards of the city's resources.
"It is a good place to put it because that's where our people are," he said. "That's where we're going to have people checking on it, stirring it when it's appropriate, hauling it out when it's appropriate, and so it does fit in with our operation."
If the city put the station somewhere else, it wouldn't be a good use of citizen's money, Lane said.
"I feel sorry that it has come to this, but that does happen when ... you have a residential zone butting up against a light industrial (zone,)" he said.
When bids were opened the Moses Lake company was the apparent second lowest bidder, but the proposal contained math errors, Harer wrote. After the errors were corrected, the company became the lowest bidder.
"It was about $20,000 lower," he said. "What we did when we found those mathematical mistakes ... we contacted Central Washington Excavating and let them know the mistakes and decide whether they wanted to honor their unit prices or not."
City Attorney Michael Wyman said the mistakes were immaterial.
Lane, Deane and Councilmembers Richard Pearce and Bill Ecret approved the bid. Curnel and Liebrecht opposed it.
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