Hoquiam city council approves $405,944 stormwater pumps bid

Piece by piece, the North Shore Levee West Segment gets closer to reality. Its construction will help thousands of residents who are paying a plush premium on flood insurance.

The levee just got its next piece, as Hoquiam City Council voted to move forward with the $405,944 purchase of new stormwater pumps from Granich Engineer Products for the Queen Avenue Stormwater Pump Station. The price includes sales tax. The “grand total for two complete pumps,” according to Granich’s proposal, was $372,768.

Chehalis Basin Flood Authority is expected to send grant funding Hoquiam’s way in order to pay for the construction when funding is allocated during the 2025-2026 budget.

According to Brian Shay, Hoquiam’s city administrator, the city only received one bid during the bid process, which lasted about three weeks.

“I had several different pump vendors contact me, but none of them decided to bid on it,” Shay said. “When you put together bid specifications for the pumps, it’s kind of specific details on like what materials have to be made … all these different things. I don’t know, I was expecting to get some bids. I was kind of surprised we got one, but the bidder who bid on it is the one we bought the pumps for the 10th Street Pump Station, which is under construction. So the city was definitely pleased with the company that bid.”

Shay said the city applied for a $1.2 million grant for construction through the Chehalis Basin Flood Authority.

“I feel very confident that we will get that grant,” Shay said. “It sounds like there could be the potential of getting money sooner. There might be some surplus funds through the state Department of Ecology, and if that’s the case we can maybe even get the funds through that surplus instead of the grant that we applied for. I feel pretty confident by next summer we’ll have the funding and we can go to construction.”

Shay said the grant the city applied for is going through a review process.

“They’re ranking the projects and they’ll have a ranked list,” Shay said. “But then it won’t be formally approved until the Legislature adopts the next two-year budget, so if we get the grant as soon as the funds are available, would be like next May. That’s kind of where it stands.”

Shay said the pumps are “super vital.”

“There were several of our pump stations that we needed to upgrade as part of the North Shore Levee West project,” Shay said. “We’re doing the 10th Street construction, that’s one we needed to do. Queen (Avenue) is another one that needed to be done. We’re trying to get these pump stations done in advance of the levee project.”

People driving east on Simpson Avenue, near the Hoquiam Police Station that is on 10th Street, have most definitely seen the large-scale construction project happening over there. That’s the 10th Street Pump Station project. Shay gave an update on that.

“It’s doing great,” Shay said. “(They’re) doing an awesome job on it. Everything’s going good.”

Contact Reporter Matthew N. Wells at matthew.wells@thedailyworld.com.