from this week’s paper:

Grays Harbor County and the City of Ocean Shores have been playing what you could call “Waterball.” The County wants to sell the City water, from wells it plans to drill in Hogan’s Corner.

While this has been going on for years, the game has heated up, of late.

In September, representatives from the County and City met to discuss various options the County had, offering to sell the City water as early as this year. Mayor Dean Bunkers said Ocean Shores would have an answer, by the end of 2008.

Instead, on Dec. 29, Bunkers sent a letter to the County, with questions and “additional concerns.” Two of the biggest areas seemed to be “an abandoned landfill that may be up-gradient of the Hogan’s Corner well field” and a request that, rather than the 72 hours of testing previously done, “would the County be willing to pump its well at a rate of 1,000 gpm (gallons per minute) for a period not less than 120 days during the summer months with water quality testing and additional monitoring wells (piezometer)?”

During last week’s retreat, there was grumbling from City Council members that the letter had not been answered. The North Coast News called Kevin Varness, the County’s utility director, on Thursday afternoon (shortly after the retreat ended). He said the County’s response had been mailed on Monday, and emailed a copy of it.

An article in the “Water!” series this week printed answers from three City Council members (Nick Johnson, Mike Patrick and Dave Creighton) to questions posed by the North Coast News in an email.

Garland French did not get the original email, but replied to a follow-up:

Our city council responsibility is to provide for the best quality water
service at the lowest possible costs to to community.
I am not convinced yet that the path being proposed by the city is best.
Spending yet another six to nine million on a new treatment facility,
investing in a new and still developing treatment technology and drilling
more shallow wells with their own new set of quality problems is taking on
a whole new set of issues. Not to mention the millions of new debt that
rate payers will be paying for.

Is a “utility bank” funding Ocean Shores? 

By Tom Scanlon

Editor, the North Coast News

An Ocean Shores businessman complains he’s paying $200 per month “for water I can’t drink.” His regret: “I should have built at Hogan’s Corner.”

A local resident says whenever her grandkids stay over, they gag when they take a shower.

And yet . . . Even with what everyone seems to agree is substandard quality, the water appears to be funding the City.

WATER!!!

No fast relief for Ocean Shores residents thirsting for good water

Part I of a series on Ocean Shores water/utilities

By Tom Scanlon

Ocean Shores residents have been complaining about the taste of the tap water for years.

Arnold Samuels, a resident here for 27 years, says he has a simple solution for local water drinkers: 

“Put a little Scotch in it.”

Seriously, he advised to not hold your breath for high-quality H2O. “Some years it’s worse than others, but it’ll probably never be good.”

Jim Jordan, an Ocean Shores resident for even longer than Samuels, recalls that when he first got here, the water “was damn good.”

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