Grant money to be used to clean up Wallula water

By John Trumbo, Herald staff writer

WALLULA -- Dee Glessner holds a clear glass of water drawn from her kitchen tap and proclaims: "We have wonderful water, the best-tasting. It's perfect."

Well, not quite.

Glessner and her neighbors in Wallula are being ordered to clean up the town's untreated water because the community well has a bit more arsenic in it than federal officials would like.

That's why Glessner's town of about 100 residents is receiving $802,335 as a community development block grant in Walla Walla County.

The grant is part of $11.5 million being distributed by the state's Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development, said Greg Tompkins, chairman of the Walla Walla County Board of Commissioners.

"I want to congratulate the Wallula Water District board members for their proactive work on securing funds and remedying a potentially unsafe situation," Tompkins said in a statement issued to the Herald.

Three other communities in the Mid-Columbia that have faltering community water systems also will receive some of the state money to fix the problems.

* Prosser will use $610,067 to help replace leaking water lines in Village Park, an affordable housing project.

* Mattawa plans to drill a new well for its 3,400 residents with a $785,408 grant. The current 50-year-old well is failing, said Patricia Gerdes, Mattawa's clerk-treasurer.

* Basin City in Franklin County is getting $1 million to finish a major water system acquisition and upgrade, said Fred Bowen, county administrator.

Each community is putting up additional money with the grants to ensure the projects will be completed.

Wallula's water problem wasn't discovered until state water quality tests found 10.4 parts per billion in the town's sole water source, a well in the schoolyard drilled about a half-century ago.

While the water looks and tastes good and makes great coffee, the arsenic count was slightly over the 10 ppb that the Environmental Protection Agency considers safe for drinking water.

Glessner said she and her neighbors don't believe they've got a problem because the arsenic safe limit was 50 ppb for about 40 years until the rule changed in 2001.

"We've got 58 connections in the Wallula Water District No. 1," said Glessner, who is chairman of the board. "And most people aren't concerned. They don't really want to know."

What the citizens do care about is that water rates have gone up from $35 to $50 mostly to satisfy state officials who want the district to build up some reserves for when the Wallua water system faces another contamination, failure or other problem.

Glessner said drilling a second well is better than trying to build a filtration system, which would be more costly. But a second well is a gamble because it could yield the same kind of arsenic-tainted water. And she fears it may introduce a sulfur smell into her now pristine tap water.

State officials and Wallula's residents are betting that blending the new water with the existing well water will dilute the arsenic count to below 10 ppb.

"It's a huge change, but this will give extra capacity for fire protection," Glessner said.

She said everything is ready to go on calling for bids so the work can begin this summer.

The other good news is that about $200,000 in federal stimulus money is coming too. That should cover expenses that the grant money doesn't, she said.

But it won't be used to reduce water rates, even though Glessner said that's really what her neighbors would like.

tool name

Friday, May. 01, 2009

Grant money to be used to clean up Wallula water

By John Trumbo, Herald staff writer