Port of Mattawa moving forward with 2 grant projects

MATTAWA — The Port of Mattawa is moving forward with two grant-funded projects this year after the Grant County Treasurer increased the port’s warrant limitations, according to the port’s Executive Director Gil Alvarado. Alvarado said the port has also temporarily paused selling its wastewater treatment plant.

Alvarado outlined the basic issue with the port’s warrant limitations and their impact on the port’s grant funding.

“I needed (the commissioners) to give me authorization to accept, basically a loan from the Grant County Treasurer,” Alvarado said. “What (the Treasurer’s Office) did is they increased our warrant limitations.”

Alvarado explained the process further.

“We write checks, basically, and the county treasurer issues warrants and basically pays those payments because they're collecting our taxes,” he said. “They hold the taxes and the revenues we deposit, they’ve got, let's just call it a Port of Mattawa fund, so then we write warrants from that fund.”

The port’s warrant limitations are not large enough to accommodate some of its ongoing projects, Alvarado said. 

“The issue for us is a kind of a good problem to have,” he said. “We have three grants; specifically, all three of them are reimbursable only. And it's great that … we were all able to kind of put these deals together. I think what wasn't really looked at closely after I kind of took over is that these grants are reimbursable. Well, if you total those three grants, it's over $2 million. We don't have $2 million in our account, so to speak.”

The two grants and projects the port will be moving forward with this year are both through the Washington Department of Commerce. $350,000 in funding is for the third phase of upgrades to the port Event Center, specifically to improve parking lot safety, Alvarado said, as well as $600,000 for improvements to the port’s water infrastructure.

“In order to move on these grants, because they're important, and they're important to the community … every county has a finance committee, so I made a presentation to them,” Alvarado said. “I said, ‘Okay, we have these projects, we have these two birds in hand, we just can't finance them. So if the county was able to increase our warrant limits, then when we pay bills, then we submit those bills for reimbursement, then we pay the county back.'”

Alvarado said the Grant County Treasurer has increased warrant limitations with other special purpose districts, such as Grant County Public Hospital District 2, and there is a statutory process for paying the county back.

“This isn't anything that's outside the norm, and we have to pay fair market interest, just like if it were a loan,” he said. “I had gone out to private entities, banks if you will, but really, it's a lot more complicated for a port district to borrow money, so this was the cleanest and easiest way to do it, and with the Board of County Commissioners support, (the Treasurer’s Office) approved it.”

Now, Alvarado said the port can move forward with their grant projects.

“I can start going out to bid and request for proposals and all that,” he said.

Alvarado also shared an update on the port’s ongoing sale of its wastewater treatment plant, which has been put on hold after further investigation of the plant’s lagoon.

“It hadn't been cleaned for a while, so we were trying to figure out what the solids look like,” Alvarado said. “I hired a company that does sonar on lagoons to try to establish capacities, and I think it was a big eye-opener for us in that, basically, our lagoon is designed to hold 3 million gallons of discharge and basically half of it is full with solids.”

Clearing out the solids is only a temporary delay to the plant’s eventual sale, Alvarado said.

“We're still moving forward with selling it,” he said. “I think it's a matter of making these improvements so that when we do sell it, whoever the buyer is basically taking a system that is functioning better.”

Additionally, the Port of Mattawa recently attended the International Council of Shopping Centers’ commercial real estate tradeshow in Las Vegas in late May.

“I will tell you that for the next agenda, I'll have an executive session to talk about real estate matters,” he said. “I will say there are parties interested in some of the port's assets, which was pretty exciting.”

The Port of Mattawa’s next regular commission meeting is scheduled for June 10 at 5 p.m. at the port’s offices, located at 20140 Road 24 SW.

    The Port of Mattawa has received $350,000 in funding through the Washington Department of Commerce to make improvements to the parking lot in front of the port’s event center, pictured.