The Roy City Council voted unanimously to table dedicating more than $600,000 in grants and encumbered funds to address the city’s contaminated source water during a special meeting on Monday, June 24.
Skillings, the City’s engineering firm, revealed to the council that the shallower of Roy’s two wells, referred to as Well #1, was found in a February test to be contaminated with per/polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) above the state action level (SAL) and above the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) maximum contaminant levels (MCL).
John Hnatishin, utility manager for Skillings, told the council that four different kinds of contaminants in the PFAS “family” were found in the well, which is about 150 feet deep. In the city’s deeper well, referred to as Well #2, high levels of iron and manganese were found.
Skillings proposed that the City and the firm work with the Washington state Department of Ecology (DOE) to drill a new well at the site of Well #2, which is owned by the City, to establish a well field. They also proposed that they coordinate with the DOE to move water rights from Well #1 to the newly drilled well at the site of Well #2 and to design and construct an iron and manganese treatment plant at the Well #2 site. Lastly, they recommended that Well #2 be decommissioned once the new proposed well was functional.
The firm would use $242,500 in grant funds from the Department of Commerce and $300,000 from the Legislature, as well as $77,869 in federal funding left over from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021, to help pay for the project. The resolution the council was asked to approve would authorize accepting the $242,500 in grants and allocate the $300,000 from the Legislature.
In total, Skillings requested that the council approve the firm to begin scoping the proposal and utilize the grant funding to begin immediately.
While the councilors expressed their content with the scope of Skillings’ work and proposals after the presentation, they decided to table voting on the resolution this week and instead vote on it at their next meeting on July 8.
Mayor Pro-Tem Yvonne Starks said her concern was how much the entire scope of work would cost the city beyond what funds it currently has.
“I’d like to see the resolution rewritten a little bit and have an idea of what it’s actually going to cost the city. I realize it’s going to cost more than what we have for those two grants,” she said. “The filtration process several years ago would have cost $600,000, and we know it’s going to cost a lot just to drill a well and get a pump in there. We’d like to see a plan and maybe some costs. Just do it in phases. If it’s just going to be the engineering part of it and the plan, give us an idea of what it’s going to cost for you to do that and then we’ll move on.”
Thomas Skillings, president of Skillings, said the firm will provide a detailed scope of work and the cost associated with those tasks. He added that the timeframe as to when the work would begin would be “as soon as possible” once approved by the council.
“We’ll take that scope to the horizon that we can see and what’s clear in as much detail as we can and then we’ll give you a projection of what might be over the horizon,” he said.
As the council voted to table the resolution for next month’s meeting, Councilor Jim Rotondo clarified that the council is not turning down the money or rejecting the grants.
“We’re gonna get drug through the mud by all the stuff on Facebook and all that crap that goes up saying we’re turning down money and turning down Skillings. By no means are we turning this down because we all live here, too, and we want it straightened out. We just want it done,” he said. “We don’t want to be sitting here two years from now and saying, ‘What happened to that money?’ ”
Skillings explained that while the PFAS in Well #1 are hazardous and can lead to health problems, the iron and manganese in Well #2 are not considered to be health and safety hazards. They are considered safe to drink but are an “aesthetic nuisance” that affect color, smell and taste. Hnatishin added that methods to treat iron and manganese are well-documented and less expensive than treating PFAS.
The engineering firm is also pursuing emergency grant funding in response to the contaminants. Skillings said the “school of thought” regarding the source of the PFAS contamination is Roy’s proximity to Joint Base Lewis-McChord and the chemicals it uses for firefighting.
The next council meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m., Monday, July 8, at Roy City Hall, 216 McNaught Road S.
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