The Tri-Cities communities won't be getting a share of $30 million in state money to help keep stormwater runoff from polluting clean water sources in Washington this year.
The Department of Ecology's selected projects of highest priority left requests from West Richland, Richland and Kennewick off the short list.
That includes Kennewick's bid for $600,000 to build a new facility for separating pollutants from stormwater runoff. Martin Nelson, the city's streets and storms supervisor, said a second facility eventually will be needed on the west side of town to handle stormwater issues resulting from new development.
Nelson said the runoff waste processing facility project will have to wait until the next round of applications.
It's the same for West Richland, where $470,348 is needed to modify a stormwater collection system along Bombing Range Road to prevent possible overflows of the Columbia Irrigation District canal during major storms.
Public Works Director Roscoe Slade said the city also sought $123,525 to solve a potential stormwater runoff problem into the Yakima River near a stormwater runoff collection point off Grosscup Road. Both projects will be resubmitted to the state in the future.
Richland, too, must wait for $210,589 it sought for the Canyon Terrace Stormwater Treatment project and another $198,814 for the Leslie Groves Park Regional Infiltration Facility.
Ecology spokeswoman Sandy Howard said the shortage of money in Olympia "has hurt everybody," but those cities and counties that didn't make the cut can reapply in the next round.
The five applications from the Tri-Cities were among 50 that were nixed because of "higher priorities with no funding available," the state's priority list noted.
The current list is based on $30 million being available, but that could shrink to $8 million to meet the state's shortfall, Howard noted.
That would reduce the number of eligible applicants to 18, eliminating about 30 who passed the first round, Howard said.
The top-listed project was from the city of Clarkston in Asotin County, where $147,656 is needed to replace a series of interconnected catch basins with dry wells. Public Works Director Jim Martin said this is the first time Clarkston has received a state grant for stormwater runoff work in more than a decade.
Spokane County's need for $206,025 to retrofit a water quality facility was the second-highest ranked project.
The largest funding request that made the short list was from the city of Wenatchee, for $1.5 million to do major work on a regional stormwater runoff waste facility.
