George awarded state funding for well renovations

GEORGE — The city of George’s engineering consultants informed the George City Council during Tuesday’s regular meeting that the city had successfully secured state funding to improve their wells to help with an ongoing water shortage.

City Engineer Jamin Ankney with Grey and Osborne Consulting said that since it was an emergency loan request, the Washington Public Works Board prioritized it above other funding requests and approved it sooner than they might have otherwise.

“It’s a $601,000 funding package … to finish the Well 4 improvements and start design on deepening Well 3, possibly Well 5, to start the design on that,” said Ankney.

Ankney said that since Well 4has to be taken offline in order to do the construction and improve the well’s functions, they have to wait until a time of the year when the water from Well 4 can be shut off, but that the funding will be ready to go when they begin the work.

“It’s a 50% loan, 50% grant, which is phenomenal. Public Works Trust Fund hasn’t historically given grants,” said Ankney. “The interest rate is 0.86%, so less than 1% interest over 20 years. The only much better thing you could get is a 100% grant, and that hasn’t come around very often, so this is very advantageous funding.”

The council then unanimously passed a motion authorizing Mayor Gerene Nelson to execute the Public Works Board Emergency Loan Contract, which will allow Nelson and City Attorney Chuck Zimmerman to sign the contract to accept the grant and the responsibility for paying back the loan portion of the funds.

Regarding Well 3, Ankney said that extending it to access a deeper aquifer of water would save on costs when compared to putting in a brand-new well, since the well is already partially drilled and there is existing infrastructure in the well that can still be used. However, the Public Works Board emergency loan does not cover those costs, just the costs of design.

Ankney recommended that the city start design on Well 3 and then go back to the Public Works Board during a future funding cycle and request more funds to finish the project.

“That’s where you can kind of leverage those design funds to have a shovel-ready project. They like to fund projects that are ready to go,” said Ankney.

Ankney said that a conservative preliminary estimate for the cost of construction on deepening Well 3 was $1,855,000. The council briefly discussed several possible funding options before moving on.

“It’s significantly more than I imagined,” said Nelson. “So I think we’re going to have to go after funding more.”

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