Warden council seeks new member, approves well projects

Charles H. Featherstone/Columbia Basin Herald Warden Mayor Tony Massa.

by Charles H. Featherstone Staff Writer
| May 10, 2018 3:00 AM

WARDEN — If you live in the city of Warden, and are interested in serving on the city council, the city council wants to hear from you.

Warden needs to a fill a vacancy on its city council following the resignation of Michael Leavitt, who was arrested on March 29 for voyeurism while working as a substitute teacher for the Warden School District.

Leavitt resigned in late April, and is currently free on $85,000 bail.

According to Mayor Tony Massa, the council looked at a previous applicant for a council position that was filled on April 11, but that applicant said he was no longer interested.

“We’ll advertise and hold interviews,” Massa said.

The five-member council currently only has four members — Kayla Night, Byron Starkey, Omar Pruneda, and Rosalie Martinez.

The council also unanimously voted to award two contracts worth a total of around $1.8 million to install the pump and build a well house and install a little less than a mile of pipe to connect Well No. 9, which is located near the Warden Airport, to the city’s water system.

General Industries of Spokane Valley submitted the winning bid of $1.13 million to equip the well house, while Pegram Construction of Othello bid around $650,000 to lay the pipe.

“We got seven bids (for the well house), which surprised us,” said Don Tulloch, an engineer with Gray & Osborne who consults for Warden. “We’re very pleased, and it is an indication that they understood what we wanted.”

In order to connect to the city’s water system, Tulloch said the pipeline would have to come in to the city under both the BNSF and Columbia Basin Railroad line that pass between the airport and Pacific Coast Canola’s production facility.

“We have approval to drill under the railroad tracks,” Massa said.

The well should be able to provide resident and businesses an additional 2,500 gallons-per-minute of water, and will replace Well No. 5, which was found to be contaminated with ethylene dibromide (EDB), a fumigant and pesticide.

Massa said that because EDB breaks down in sunlight and open air, Well No. 5 has been reclassified for agricultural irrigation use, though he added that in several decades, enough of the EDB may be drawn off to make the well safe for drinking water again.

“The reason we’re doing the east-west pipeline is to ensure we have adequate clean water,” Massa said. “Hopefully, this should get us where we need to be.”

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.