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

Wahkiakum PUD Manager Dave Tramblie will not receive a bonus in appreciation for his stewardship of the PUD’s $2.3 million substation construction project that was completed last month.

The project was originally projected to cost $3 million but stayed more than $500,000 under budget. Tramblie told PUD commissioners meeting Tuesday that a few minor vouchers remained to be paid in February, but that he did not think the cost would increase much beyond the $2,278,309 already paid for the work.

At the utility directors’ February 5 meeting, Commissioner Dennis Reid proposed awarding Tramblie a one-time bonus. The commissioners tasked PUD Attorney Tim Hanigan with researching the issue.The state constitution prohibits the board from authorizing extra compensation to the manager for work he was contractually obligated to perform under his duties as manager, said Hanigan. A 1992 opinion by the attorney general came to that conclusion, he said.

In addition, Reid and Commissioners Gene Healy and Bob Jungers said they had all received negative feedback from ratepayers about the proposed bonus.

In other business, Jungers stated that he took umbrage with what he characterized as misleading statements made in Cathlamet Mayor George Wehrfritz’s State of the Town report released on February 11. The report was printed in an abridged version on page two of the February 14 edition of The Eagle.

Jungers referenced the portion of the report that addressed the PUD’s water contract with the town. The PUD purchases all the water that feeds its Puget Island system from the town.

The report states that the current contract allows the PUD to purchase water “at below the actual cost incurred in purifying it, delivering it and maintaining necessary systems. This contract has provided the PUD an annual windfall; the cost is that Cathlamet has negligible reserves for water system upgrades or expansion.”

In response, Jungers said “we have been negotiating in good faith with the mayor over various issues including the responsibilities of meter reading and the potential for revising the method by which we achieve the true-up in the water contract.

“It’s my understanding that we’re paying cost plus 10 percent. How can they be losing money on cost plus 10 percent? Both sides put the contract together. It wasn’t just a PUD document,” added Reid.

The commissioners discussed preparing a written response addressing the report to submit to the town council, but decided against it for the moment.

In explanation, Jungers said “trying to explain the nuances of the contract in a statement and getting the idea across clearly (would) be very difficult. One of the reasons they are in financial difficulty with their system is because their infrastructure has decayed to the point that their water losses are so high that they are manufacturing a lot of water that they’re not selling.

“Our rates from them are based on how much water we buy in ratio to how much water they manufacture, not how much they sell. The implication is that the mayor would like the ratios to be based on how much they sell to us and how much they sell to others, which would in effect give our ratepayers on Puget Island the responsibly of subsidizing a lack of maintenance on the part of the town, and that’s specifically what the contract is designed to avoid.

“The old saying ‘a lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part’ is essentially what we’re dealing with here.”

The commissioners concluded that they were not interested in further discussion of a possible contract to perform meter reading and billing for the town’s water and sewer utilities.

Renegotiation of the water contract has been an ongoing process.