MATTAWA — Port of Mattawa Commissioners voted unanimously during Monday’s regular meeting to allow Executive Director Gil Alvarado to move forward with the sale of the port-owned wastewater treatment plant, located on Road 23 Southwest.

“Frankly, that type of facility is better managed in the hands of folks who are in that industry,” Alvarado said.

The other reason the port is selling the facility is because its expenses are outpacing its revenues, Alvarado said.

“The way the port operates, with that wastewater treatment facility you have two wine-crushing companies. One is J&S (Crushing), and you have Milbrandt/Wahluke (Wine Co.). So both of those folks, because at the time one of them did not have the ability to discharge its waste when it crushed (grapes), basically, we would enter into a lease with them,” Alvarado said. “They would lease part of our wastewater facility. We would take their waste, process it, and spray it within a certain time frame. J&S decided to part ways with the port and create their own system.”

The facility’s revenue was cut in half when J&S split from the port, Alvarado said.

“The port went out for a (Community Economic Revitalization Board) loan, one point some odd million,” he said. “So they've been paying back that debt service with revenues collected. Revenues are cut in half, then you have operation and maintenance issues.”

Alvarado said the lagoon at the plant has been filling too quickly, causing overflow that moved the port into violation status with the Department of Ecology until Alvarado shut off discharge from the remaining wine-crushing company.

“At this point, we don't have anybody discharging anything,” he said. “I did shut off the valve to Milbrandt. We've been having some issues, so I reached out to them. We're working together, we're kind of trying to collaborate on what the problem is.”

If the maintenance issues persist until the port sells the facility, they will be the responsibility of the next owner, Alvarado said.

“We have had conversations with the Department of Ecology. As a matter of fact, they have even, I guess, supported the idea of selling the facility. They weren’t opposed to that,” he said. “The reason we had meetings with them is we were trying to understand; we have a permit with the Department of Ecology, a wastewater discharge permit, and we were wanting to understand if it's in our name can we transfer that permit to the next owner, and they said yes … they were okay with that as long as we took care of all the paperwork, if you will.”

Alvarado said the sale of the facility has been a potential option for some time.

“It's been discussed under executive session consecutively for a couple of months now,” Alvarado said. “Because we have a new commissioner now, we needed to make sure she was on board with that … It'll take us a couple of months to get some of these documents all prepared.”

The process for selling the facility is somewhat complicated.

“It's part of an industrial development district, so we have to go through the process, the attorney has to go through the process of removing that. We also need to amend our comprehensive plan in order to remove it from that as well, so that we could deem it surplus,” Alvarado said. “Then there's a public process, there's a public offering, and we'll see if we have any takers … The likelihood will be that the two current winery services in town probably would be in play here.”

Gabriel Davis may be reached at [email protected]. Download the Columbia Basin Herald app on iOS and Android.

    Exterior of the Port of Mattawa’s office building, located adjacent to one of the port’s industrial parks west of Mattawa. The port’s Executive Director Gil Alvarado said the port-owned wastewater treatment facility’s expenses have outpaced its revenues.
  

    An aerial view of the Port of Mattawa’s wastewater treatment plant. When operating normally, the plant treats waste from Wahluke Wine Co. and stores it in the lagoon, pictured on the right. Port Commissioners voted unanimously Monday to approve staff to sell the plant.