Members of the Winlock City Council convened on Monday, Aug. 11, for the first of their two regular monthly meetings.
The many agenda items included Winlock Water and Sewer Superintendent Rodney Cecil discussing his efforts to get more water rights for the city.
The council also approved a Washington state Transportation Improvement Board (TIB) grant application for various Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance updates around Winlock.
Additionally, Cecil and the council also discussed the possibility of selling “purple water,” which is reclaimed wastewater, to prospective tech businesses looking to save money on cooling water needed for their electronics.
As for the water rights, Cecil is currently working with the Washington state Department of Ecology and Cardinal FG Company, on Avery Road, in order to get more.
“We filed this on behalf of Cardinal Glass. This is what we’re trying to get. They owe us 157 acre-feet (of water rights), and this is an attempt to get that acre-feet back in,” Cecil said. “So, we’re filing for a new water right, not buying one that already exists. That process is in play right now, and we’ll see what happens with Ecology.”
He added Cardinal has already returned 78.9 acre-feet of water rights to the city. Another nearby property owner is also looking to sell roughly 34 acre-feet of water rights they own.
“We’re working with Cardinal on that to see if they want to buy it, which they will … But it’s irrigation, so it’s seasonal. It wouldn’t be a year-round water right,” Cecil added.
City staff have two options with these 34 acre-feet for sale — either simply incorporate it as a part of municipal water rights despite it being seasonal, or let Cardinal purchase it.
“They purchase it, we don’t use it, and then we get to tell Ecology we’re contributing 34 acre-feet back into the aquifer to make it more appealing for the other water right,” Cecil said.
Currently, Cecil is waiting on a meeting with Ecology staff to see what stipulations they want to impose before moving forward. City staff are also looking into purchasing land in the area near Cardinal to drill a new well.
As for the TIB grant, the ADA compliance updates involve improving both drainage and ADA sidewalk accessibility around Northwest Washington Street and Northwest Benton Avenue near the Winlock Miller Elementary School.
If the TIB awards the grant, The City of Winlock will be required to match 5% of the funds given.
When it comes to the issue of purple water, Cecil told the council the city produces about 110,000 gallons of it per day.
Plans are in the works to construct a purple water supply line out to the Winlock’s industrial park. During Monday’s meeting, the council approved funding a feasibility study looking into what would be needed to build the supply line.
Originally, the plan was to sell the water to Cardinal to use it for cooling its glass products.
“They use about 125(,000 gallons a day), so we figured it would be a good fit. They use it, we get all of our 150 acre-feet (of water rights) back,” Cecil said.
While purple water is non-potable and cannot be used on vegetable or fruit crops, it can be used for other farming irrigation including hay fields, or cooling for industrial purposes like at glass factories.
However, Cardinal is currently looking at other cooling methods to possibly implement in their factory, meaning they may not need the purple water.
Should Cardinal end up not purchasing the purple water, Cecil said the city itself could even use it to help save drinking water for customers, or sell it to tech businesses who might be looking at building a data center in the industrial park.
Depending on its size, a data center can consume hundreds of thousands of gallons of water for cooling each day, or even millions if it's a large center.
According to Mayor Brandon Svenson, city staff are also looking into selling purple water as a way to deal with on-going inflation the city faces while trying to keep all of its departments running.
“This is another revenue stream for water and sewer, the costs associated with it are kind of skyrocketing nowadays,” Svenson said.
He added the purple water could be used in other applications as well, as when Penske was constructing its warehouse in the industrial park, drinking water was used during construction.
“It was about a million square feet, something like that. It was a lot of concrete, and they used a lot of drinking water,” Svenson said. “This is a perfect situation for them as well.”
“Kubota said they could use it in their membrane cleaning process,” Cecil added.
Cecil also proposed constructing a 100,000 gallon purple water storage tank to keep a reserve for times when there might not be that much available.
