SEQUIM — Clallam County Commissioner Steve Tharinger this week urged the Sequim City Council members to minimize proposed water and sewer infrastructure to Battelle during a joint city-county meeting.
“I think a scaled-back approach is more viable for the county . . . just to get Battelle online,” Tharinger, who also sits on the Clallam County Economic Development Council board, told the Sequim City Council during the joint work session Monday night.
Tharinger said that when the county receives figures from the city on the infrastructure proposal, “then we will see how the county can build it into its capital planning.”
Battelle Marine Sciences Laboratory, headquartered at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Sequim Marine Research Operations, is the federal Department of Energy’s only marine research laboratory.
The facility and its researchers study and produce science and technology that is critical to the nation’s energy, environmental and security future, company officials say.
Battelle, now a part of Clallam County on the shores of West Sequim, seeks to be annexed into the city of Sequim to replace its septic system by hooking up to the city sewage treatment system.
Battelle expansion
As proposed, city water and sewer service, and improved roads leading to it, will allow Battelle to expand its campus to include a $6 million to $14 million marine science lab that will replace the existing facility.
It could be built next year if all goes well with financing.
Sequim City Manager Steve Burkett told the county commissioners that the city was not talking only about infrastructure to Battelle but to the entire area that encompasses West Sequim Bay, including acreage proposed near John Wayne Marina for Wayne Enterprises’ future resort plans.
That might be done through grants, Burkett said, but is uncertain at this point.
But for now, Burkett said, “We need to have a plan to get appropriate water, street and sewer improvements to Battelle within two years.”
Mayor Ken Hays said the Battelle annexation proposal “just gets me excited.”
Sustainable economies
Hays said the city and county must “embrace sustainable economies,” such as biomass, solar, wind and tidal energy.
Hays said he saw Battelle’s growth in these technologies as important to the entire region and beyond.
“The next phase of the economy is to come out of renewable energy,” Hays said.
“Sequim, the North Olympic Peninsula, happens to be in the center of this.”
Battelle’s long-range plan calls for hiring 200 to 300 people over 20 to 30 years of expansion.
The company’s staff expects to grow at a rate of about 10 percent a year, city officials said.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.