Snohomish County NewsStudents plant trees
Garfield Elementary School fifth-graders helped plant trees April 8 at Everett’s Senator H.M. Jackson Park in celebration of Arbor Day. During a brief ceremony, students read poems and held up posters highlighting the importance of planting trees. Mayor Ray Stephanson gave a speech and accepted the Tree City USA award from the National Arbor Day Foundation. Everett is in its 16th year meeting Tree City’s standards for its ongoing stewardship of its urban forest.
The students got to take home trees to plant in their yards, pictured.
Council considers switching to Everett water
By MICHAEL WHITNEY
SNOHOMISH — The City Council is considering having Everett supply water to all city residents, citing the move would mean lower water bills and the ability to free the city from maintaining a treatment plant. Before any move is made, the city will need to figure out what to do with 93 noncity residents who receive water from Snohomish.
The 93 customers live outside city limits near Machias and get their water from the Pilchuck River. The City Council last week decided to start the legal process to find out what the city would need to do to get those customers off Snohomish water.
Residents living south of 10th Street get their water from Snohomish while residents north of 10th Street get their water from Everett. Residents across the city are billed the same rate.
The average water user is projected to pay more each year under the current system than if the city switches to Everett water, according to city figures. The average water user is projected to pay $95.89 per bill for water in 2013 under a Snohomish system. If the city switches to Everett water, the average water user would pay $79.42 in 2013, according to city figures.
Public works staff prefers to keep using Pilchuck River water for half the city to maintain Snohomish’s water rights to use that river.
One potential option for the 93 customers would be to switch to Snohomish County Public Utility District water.
The PUD could handle those customers, but they would need to pay for hooking up to it, PUD spokesman Neil Neroutsos said last week.
City attorney Grant Weed warned it might take a vote of the people to accomplish the move.
The complete switch to Everett water is projected to result in lower water bills compared to a number of alternatives over the course of the next two decades, pending Everett’s current customer water rate trend, city officials said.
The move also would relieve the Pilchuck River, the current source of water for the southern half of the city.
While the council was enchanted by Everett’s lower comparative cost, city staff preferred keeping the Pilchuck system running because it allows the city to not rely on Everett.
The city already is working toward sending its sewage to Everett by 2013 and current plans are to close Snohomish’s wastewater treatment plant.
Public works director Tim Heydon said the current water treatment plant has five to 10 years left before expensive repairs would be necessary. Council members wanted to see if an Everett deal could be seized quicker than this timeline, but Heydon was concerned about losing water rights to the Pilchuck River if the city no longer uses that source. Snohomish currently has the primary water rights for the river. One option may be to use the plant temporarily and sell water to someone, Heydon said.
“To give up those water rights gives some danger down the road,” citizen Tom Hamilton warned the council.
Councilwoman Lynn Schilaty said she understood Hamilton’s concern but going to Everett is superior to paying for upgrading the plant.
“Where we put the stake into the ground is the day we need to invest in that plant, and that is a day too late,” Mayor Randy Hamlin said.
“Everett is a slam dunk,” council gadfly Morgan Davis said.
The timing between Everett and Snohomish to pull this off would have to come by late summer as Everett is piecing together its contracts. Everett supplies water to 80 percent of the county including seven municipalities. The City Council will receive word later this spring on whether the 93 customers can legally be removed from Snohomish’s services.