Joint wastewater treatment facility wins awards but is getting old

Grand Coulee’s wastewater treatment plant, which it shares with Electric City, is getting old, and officials are beginning to look into upgrading or replacing it.

A representative from the state Dept. of Ecology presented Grand Coulee Sept. 17 with its fifth straight award of excellence for consistently staying up to par and presenting quality reports on time for their wastewater treatment plant.

But the facility was completed in 1985, 35 years ago.

“The plant is in need of some serious maintenance/upgrades,” Grand Coulee City Clerk Lorna Pearce told The Star in an email.

The next step is putting together a plan, which will cost about $125,000 to $130,000, Pearce said.

“Nancy Wetch [of engineering firm] Gray & Osborne, will be working on a facilities plan for the wastewater plant and also storm drainage,” Pearce said. “The city has already received confirmation from Dept. of Commerce that we will be receiving $24,000 to help pay for the plan. The city needs to have this facilities plan in place prior to applying for funding for the repairs.”

Pearce said that Wetch is working on the application process with Ecology to fund the remaining cost of the plan, which will most likely be a grant/loan package with a 60 to 70 percent of it a grant and the rest loan, Pearce explained.

Whatever the city’s cost is, Electric City would be responsible for about 37 percent of that per their contract with Grand Coulee as partial owners of the plant.

“The old adage ‘you have to spend money to get money’ is true in this situation,” Pearce said. “Without the facilities plan, the city may not be eligible for state or federal funding for the needed updates to the wastewater facility.”

The plan would reveal the current state of the plant, a timeline for repairs, and whether it could be more cost effective to build a new plant, Pearce explained.

Grand Coulee’s wastewater treatment reserve fund currently has $69,411 in it, Pearce said.

A joint committee between Grand Coulee and Electric City tasked with staying up to date on the situation consists of Electric City Councilmembers Aaron Derr and Birdie Hensley, and Mike Horn and Alan Cain of the Grand Coulee council.

The contract between the two cities needs to be cleaned up a bit too, Pearce said, saying it’s old and needs updating, something that will happen in 2020.