The Wahkiakum County Eagle - Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891

Reports about a water leak, a planned power outage, and a construction project occupied Wahkiakum PUD commissioners at their April 18 meeting.

Manager Dave Tramblie reported that a leak in the Western Wahkiakum Water System had been repaired last week. One of the water crew employees noticed water was coming out of a concrete underground storage vault, said Tramblie, and opened the vault to find the plumbing for a valve had failed.

Tramblie displayed the tiny part, which was about an inch long. “We don’t know for sure how much water we lost out of that little 3/8ths pipe, but we do know the Deep River pumping station pumped in two days (instead of its usual once-per-three-days frequency),” said Tramblie. That represents 18,000 gallons of water, he added.

Tramblie briefed the commissioners on a planned power outage scheduled for Thursday (today) impacting Skamokawa residents living between Risk Road and KM Mountain.

The outage will allow the electric crew to safely limb a spruce tree along a power line. It will start at 1 p.m. and is projected to be completed by 3:30 p.m.

Northwest Open Access Network (NoaNet) Chief Technical Officer Rob Kopp attended the meeting to report on the status of his company’s construction of broadband internet fiber optic cable infrastructure passing through Wahkiakum County. The project is in the testing phase and is nearing completion, said Kopp.

NoaNet is a non-profit corporation and sells wholesale bandwidth to for-profit “carriers” such as Wahkiakum West and Cascade Networks. In turn, the carriers sell their service to consumers.

Commissioner Bob Jungers asked Kopp if it was feasible for a PUD to install fiber infrastructure to then lease to for-profit carriers. Kopp said he knew of 12 PUDs that had done it; however, it would most likely require large capital expenses and careful attention to return on investment. It’s a big bite for a small PUD, he said, suggesting that one way to reduce expense might be to extend bandwidth using wireless transmission.

Commissioner Gene Healy recalled the push for universal telephone service to rural America. “The will of the nation at that time was that there would be telephone service in Cathlamet. It was made to happen, somehow or another, so that it didn’t kill the rate payer in Cathlamet financially,” said Healy, adding “the same thing needs to happen in this realm (broadband internet service to all).”

Kopp responded, "I think it is- it’s just happening slowly."

“I’m waiting for someone to say high speed internet in Cathlamet is right around the corner,” said Healy.