PORT ANGELES — It took several low-key extensions of the negotiating deadline to complete, but the new wholesale water supply contract between the city of Port Angeles and Clallam County Public Utility District is now signed, sealed and delivered.
The 30-year contract, which includes automatic 20-year extensions and 15 years for termination, replaces the series of short-term water contracts the two sides had signed since 1994.
The water will supply about 1,480 customers in Clallam PUD’s Gales water system, which serves an area between the city’s eastern city limit and Morse Creek.
Clallam PUD’s Board of Commissioners unanimously approved the new agreement at its Monday meeting.
The Port Angeles City Council unanimously approved the contract Aug. 1.
People served
“This long-term contract serves the people well. They are the ones who really benefit,” said Clallam PUD Commissioner Ted Simpson.
PUD Water Superintendent Mike Kitz said the contract represented “months and months of negotiations.”
“We should be proud of what we came up with,” he said.
Clallam PUD Transmission/Substation Systems Manager Ken Morgan said the contract was a fair agreement that incorporated all of the district’s concerns.
Those concerns included a longer term than the two- and three-year agreements the two sides had operated under before, construction of a new reservoir and certainty of future water rates.
Port Angeles Mayor Karen Rogers, said, “When agencies work together, everyone benefits. Good policies and partnerships result in a community where the public’s interests and needs come first.”
The contract includes shared maintenance costs for the water transmission line in the city’s eastern urban growth area and provisions to transfer Clallam PUD water facilities to the city when the area is annexed sometime in the next decade.
It also says that Clallam PUD will build a new reservoir east of Port Angeles within five years.