School board delays wastewater work easement

The Wahkiakum School District Board of Directors last week tabled action on a request for a temporary construction road easement for the Town of Cathlamet.

The town opened bids for it new wastewater treatment plant on Friday. The plant will be built on land purchased from the district, and town officials have asked for an easement to build a temporary road for construction at the edge of the school's Farm Forest.

The district has already granted an easement for a permanent access road to the plant site, but that road will run uphill, and engineers say it would be better to start from the top of the hill, build the plant, and work on the road down hill.

Wording in the proposed easement puzzled the directors and Superintendent Bob Garrett. The language said, "Grantee (the town) shall have the right at all times to enter describer in Exhibit A (the plant site) hereto attached for the purpose of inspecting, maintaining, improving, repairing, constructing, reconstructing, locating or relocating the temporary construction access road within the easement."

"I don't know why they would want to relocate the road," Garrett said. He added that the easement is only 20 feet wide.

The directors present, Michelle Budd, Tina Schubert and Lee Tischer, agreed that the terminology was unclear and wanted to have it cleared before approving the easement.

Tischer also suggested the district should ask that the contractor construct a walking path in areas where students might be along the temporary access road so that they aren't endangered by construction traffic.