Monday, March 18, 2024

Chelan County PUD abandons Peshastin-to-Dryden pipeline project

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It seemed like a great solution to help address the phosphorus issues at Peshastin and Dryden wastewater facilities, build a pipeline connecting the two towns. According the PUD Water and Wastewater Manager, Ron Slabaugh, things were looking good during the planning stage. 

“As we moved from planning into design, we got a more thorough idea of the cost. The design level estimate exceeded our planning level estimates. When we considered with the competitive nature of grant funding and the lack of available grant funding, we just came to the conclusion that it was not a feasible project,” Slabaugh said. 

The total cost for the project would have been about $4.5 million. Slabaugh said when you look at the population in Peshastin and Dryden, that equates to a cost of about $90,000 per customer for that project. 

Simply put, there were not enough people to spread out the cost. 

“Granted, over time, with that pipeline going through undeveloped land, particularly into the Peshastin urban growth area, there is the potential for more connections, but that doesn’t help with the initial construction costs nor the long term feasibility of being responsible for that much infrastructure that we have to maintain and be responsible for the replacement,” Slabaugh said. 

The cost factor was just one thing, he said. The soil type has a lot of cobble and boulders. That material would have to be hauled away and new material brought in. It was looking at the cost of highway and bridge crossings. 

There were several of those, he said, because the pipeline path would be in-and-out the Department of Transportation right-of-way. 

“We would have been in Chelan County right-of-way, so it would have been within Chelan County’s road restoration requirements, in terms of the amount of asphalt paving,” Slabaugh said. “Another consideration is the bidding climate. In the last couple years, our economy has taken off again. Some say growth is at or exceeding the levels we saw in 2007 before the economy took a downturn and construction prices go up.”

In terms of addressing the phosphorus discharge into the Wenatchee River, per Washington Department of Ecology mandate, Slabaugh said they are on track for Peshastin, designing treatment improvements to help comply with the requirement. 

At Dryden, he said there were able to get Ecology to agree to let them focus on Peshastin first, then regroup and work with Ecology to come up with something cost effective at Dryden. 

“I don’t know exactly what that looks like now. Ecology is more interested in us getting Peshastin done now. We’ll work with them on Dryden in the near future,” Slabaugh said. 

The increased cost estimate did not come as a surprise, he said. 

“I think it was in March of 2016 when we had a community meeting. Our cost estimates were coming together. We also heard back from the state that the grant request we put in for the project hadn’t been funded,” Slabaugh said. “The state has had a fair amount of problems with the availability of grant funding in the last couple years. With the lack of available funding and the cost of the project, it just makes us take another look at it.”

He’s hoping the state is able to work with them to come up with a more cost effective solution for Dryden. The pipeline project may be on the back burner, but could it come into play down the road as part of the utility regionalization study coming up?

“That’s more looking at the financial side of the utilities, not necessarily looking at options connecting these facilities together. It’s not a physical feasibility, it is operations and management,” he said. “One of the options that will be looked is making Chelan PUD the owner operator of all of those water and wastewater utilities. There could be other options as well. We’ve not had the kickoff meeting with the consultant yet.”

This study is basically a high level look at the feasibility not really about putting pipes in the ground. 

“The idea is that, if you have one owner-operator, there are economies of scale that one owner-operator might not have versus what we have right now, four separate owner-operators, Cashmere, Leavenworth, Peshastin and Dryden,” Slabaugh said. 

Ian Dunn can be reached at 548-5286 or editor@leavenworthecho.com.

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