Coulee Dam offered loan, no grant on plant work

Coulee Dam officials had hoped they’d get some of the funding in the form of free grants for work to replace an aging sewage lift station on the west side of the Columbia River, but learned last week the funding agency intended to only offer a loan for the near million-dollar project.

Clerk Stefani Bowden said she’d gotten a call right before Wednesday’s city council meeting.

“I was a little disappointed to see this news today,” she told the council about 20 minutes later.

The lift station has been on the back burner for years while the city got its new wastewater treatment facility built and running, and the city’s engineer recommended in November, 2022 to accept a low bid on the project of $906,000. But that was under the assumption that some $600,000 of that would come in the form of a grant from the U. S. Dept. of Agriculture’s Rural Development fund.

The state office of that agency is a now recommending it be funded entirely by loan and was sending that recommendation to Washington D.C., Bowden said, for a funding package of $932,000.

Council members had questions, though, and wanted to check numbers in the proposal. No vote was taken.