Coulee Dam approves near million dollar bid, if …

Coulee Dam will accept a $906,000 bid by a contractor for work on a sewage lift station if funding and that award is approved by a federal agency.

The city council voted last week to accept a bid from Strider Construction for $906,716

to update its west side lift station, which sends wastewater from the neighborhood on the west side of the Columbia River, across the bridge to the town’s new treatment plant.

But that acceptance is contingent on the federal Dept. of Agriculture’s Rural Development Fund (RD)approving extra funding for the improvements.

The town still has $670,000 in already-approved grant funding (which doesn’t have to be repaid) left from the treatment plant build. That could go toward helping upgrade the lift station, but the council is hesitant to accept a loan package that would again boost its already high $72 monthly residential sewer rate.

Mayor Bob Poch reminded the council that if the remaining grant funding is not used, the town will forfeit it back to the federal government.

Daniel Cowger, consulting engineer with Varela Engineering, told the council a loan would likely raise those rates another $2.50 a month.

Councilmember Dale Rey said he wouldn’t feel right about indebting a future generation with even more for the upgrades. “None of us will be alive in 40 years,” he said, looking around the table, so it makes sense to safeguard the town’s assets for the next generation.

The city could hear soon and had a tentative special meeting set up for Friday to consider any offer that comes from RD, if it does.