Mattawa receives water system funding, discusses ongoing projects

MATTAWA — Gray & Osborne Civil Engineer Jamin Ankney presented to the Mattawa City Council on Thursday regarding funding the city received for two water system projects, with the council also approving two design contracts with Gray & Osborne.

Mayor Maria Celaya introduced the first funding award, through the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund.

“We have $7.2 million,” she said. “We don't know how much of it's a loan and how much of it is a grant.”

“You will get some grant (money). They just don't know exactly how much yet. It sounds like it'll be a good funding package,” Ankney said.

Ankney said that funding will be used for multiple well and water system improvements.

The council also discussed a contract with Gray & Osborne for the city’s Sewer System Improvement Design. The design will eliminate the Portage Avenue Lift Station and replace it with a system in a different location that makes better use of gravity to reduce overflows and make the wastewater system more efficient. The contract states the estimated cost for the project design is about $207,000.

Celaya elaborated on the funding the city has received for that project. 

“The Public Works Board, we had a meeting last week, and that was for the Portage lift station. They've expanded our grant amount to $2.1 million, and that's reduced the loan amount to $381,000.”

Celaya said the city needs to decide soon whether to take the loan and what repayment plan.

The wastewater additions would run through a significant amount of private land, which will require easements to continue with the project, Ankney said. He also said putting the sewer in may open new land for development in Mattawa.

“We don’t anticipate that the easements will be difficult — they’ll increase the property value for those farm parcels as this will make them easier to develop — but it does take time to get the easements and for the city to get the signatures on the easements,” Ankney said. 

The council unanimously approved both contracts with Gray & Osborne to continue with the water capacity analysis and the lift station elimination project.

The city also recently submitted its water system plan to the Washington State Department of Health, Ankney said.

“The good news was they approved your water system plan,” Ankney said. “The downside was that they gave you some more restrictive connection limits than you were anticipating. We've had multiple meetings with them, meeting at City Hall, another another follow-up Zoom meeting to discuss it with them and try to argue the city's case. Ultimately, they're saying the path forward for the city is to perform a capacity analysis to add your 2023 water use into the previous water and use that to demonstrate the capacity for more connections.”

Ankney said the capacity analysis is fairly straightforward and won’t take long to perform. The contract estimates a cost of $21,000, which Gray & Osborne cannot exceed without written approval.

“They basically took all of your connections,” Ankney said. “Obviously there are multiple ongoing developments, so the goal is to do this capacity analysis and justify enough connections so that all the existing growth can continue to occur. And by next year, you'll have well 2 online and then you'll have lots of growth.”

The city should end up with enough capacity to allow in-progress housing developments to continue, Ankney said.

“We have some of the data already … we've already looked at it,” Ankney said. “The 2023 data makes your case better, not worse, so adding that data should justify a few additional connections … By the time they're actually ready to physically connect to a house, they should all be dealt with.”

Gabriel Davis may be reached at gdavis@columbiabasinherald.com. Download the Columbia Basin Herald app on iOS and Android.

    Mattawa’s Wastewater Treatment Facility, located on Road U Southwest, takes in wastewater from the city’s mains and lift stations, one of which is set to be eliminated in favor of a more efficient system with less risk of overflowing wastewater.
  

    An aerial photo of the city of Mattawa. The Mattawa City Council heard updates from Gray & Osborne Civil Engineer Jamin Ankney regarding several ongoing water system projects and design contracts.