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The Chehalis City Council on Monday approved an addendum to the City of Centralia’s purchase and sale agreement with TransAlta for water rights, adding the City of Chehalis as an owner.
That addendum went along with an amendment to the regional water supply agreement between the two cities that was also approved as well as an interlocal agreement allowing the City of Chehalis to use Centralia’s regional decant facility to process materials collected by the city’s vacuum trucks and street sweepers.
Tom McDonald, with Cascadia Law Group, presented the final documents to help the city secure water rights. The council approved an addendum to the purchase and sale agreement between TransAlta and the City of Centralia, which made the City of Chehalis a direct buyer of water rights and a part of the agreement.
“TransAlta has created a water bank, based upon as they ramp down their operations on the Skookumchuck River, they created a bank, which essentially puts the water rights in a trust water rights program and then making that available for mitigation for other water rights in the region,” McDonald said.
He said the purchase of the rights was more secure for the city and essential with the city’s projected growth over the next few decades and the possibility that the Skookumchuck Dam could be removed.
“I think there’s a very low risk of that happening, but it’s a risk so we want those protective measures,” McDonald said.
As per the agreement, the City of Chehalis committed to purchasing 3,360 acre feet of water, or approximately 3 million gallons per day. Water will be drawn from well fields near the confluence of the Chehalis and Skookumchuck rivers.
Due to the addendum being passed, an amendment was also made to the Sept. 13, 2021 regional water supply agreement that the cities of Chehalis and Centralia originally entered into last year. It was amended to reflect the change in ownership of the actual water rights listed in the addendum.
Originally, Centralia was the sole purchaser of water rights from TransAlta and the agreement stated that the water would be shared between the cities.
According to McDonald, it was ultimately decided it would be better for Chehalis to own its own water rights to avoid issues in building infrastructure to bring the water to customers.
As both cities will be drawing from the same source, the agreement was extended to Aug. 1, 2023, to allow time for city employees from both Chehalis and Centralia to work out a potential cost sharing agreement for the infrastructure.
The council approved both the addendum and amendment unanimously.
