Moses Lake council looks at water project funding

MOSES LAKE — The Moses Lake City Council approved a motion six to one during Tuesday’s regular meeting to revise the city’s 2023 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) spending plan to fund $3 million for water remediation projects to address the lack of potable water in Moses Lake.

According to the city staff report, the spending revision will draw funds away from a water and sewer extension in Cascade Valley, a downtown stormwater project, a gravel street project and a conversion of city parks to lake water.

“Rather than identify a specific well or water-related project for these funds, staff is suggesting a generic project to be called water remediation/mitigation projects to allow flexibility in the use of the funds as we identify solutions to the current water issues that the city is facing,” said the staff report.

City of Moses Lake Finance Director Madeline Prentice presented the spending revision to the council during Tuesday’s meeting.

“Looking at these projects, we have determined that these funds would be better spent on water remediation, to try and get us to a point for items that we've identified as being able to either get filtration systems in place or other items that we've determined, we can make some significant impact immediately,” she said.

Interim City Manager Kevin Fuhr said that the city’s priority was getting more potable water in the water system, but they are still exploring several options regarding how to do that.

“All of these options that we have are to help reduce the potable water that's being used for irrigation, and every one of these things has a price tag to it. So, we're just trying to figure out where the money can be best spent to get more water,” said Fuhr.

Council Member David Skaug said that he wanted to note that the council is taking the potable water subject very seriously and that they will move funds around in order to address that issue.

“I think the public needs to know that the water issue is a big deal, and it's not going to go away without some aggressive decisions and plans. So I move that we move those funds,” he said.

The council voted six to one to approve the revision of the 2023 ARPA spending budget to move money to fund water remediation projects.

Council Member David Eck voted against the motion.

The council meeting also featured a presentation by representatives of the Spokane location of building design and construction company McKinstry on a proposed project to install new lighting in the Moses Lake Museum and Art Center to replace the outdated halogen system, and to put in water-conserving landscaping around the Civic Center, police station and city hall annex.

“With the anticipated significant potable drinking water shortage expected by the City of Moses Lake based on expected growth, leadership is looking at changes that will help reduce water usage and utilize native plants that are adapted to the arid climate,” stated the McKinstry presentation slides.

The lighting project would cost approximately $300,000 to update the halogen lighting to LEDs and update the lighting control systems to better accommodate those LEDs, according to the staff report on the project. The low-water landscaping project would cost about $600,000.

“So the new water usage, I'm actually happy to say, we can save now 75%,” said Luke Cashman, with the Spokane Branch of McKinstry. “Since I submitted these slides last week, we actually found out that the existing water usage was higher…and the total reduction ended up being 75% less water or about 750,000 gallons a year. So we are really excited about that.”

Moses Lake resident, and city council candidate, Jeremy Nolan provided a public comment regarding the lighting and water conservation projects for the civic center. He said that if there was an alternative to LED lighting that would be compatible with the current systems in the museum, the $300,000 could be used for higher-priority water projects. He also urged the council to avoid the landscaping project.

“What it demonstrates is that going to low water usage landscaping is extremely expensive for very little water savings,” said Nolan. “I believe that $600,000 that is proposed for that could be much better used in a long-term solution that would be more cost-effective for bigger water savings over a wider area than simply here at the Civic Center.”

After the presentation from McKinstry, the council agreed to wait until the next city council meeting to take action on the project proposals.

Gabriel Davis may be reached at gdavis@columbiabasinherald.com.