PORT ANGELES — Citing public health concerns, Clallam County Public Utility District commissioners voted 2-1 Thursday to sign a wholesale water contract with the city of Port Angeles.
But the commissioners — still seething over a city requirement making property owners support future annexation in return for new water hookups — also declared a moratorium on new water connections until the PUD can obtain long-term water sources of its own.
“Since the city won’t be responsible, we must be,” said Commissioner Will Purser.
“I gotta hold my nose through this. It rubs me the wrong way.”
Commissioner Hugh Haffner voted against signing the contract, which runs through 2005.
The no-protest annexation agreements with the city won’t become active until the city builds a sewer line into its unincorporated eastern urban growth area between DelGuzzi Drive and Morse Creek.
Wholesale city water accounts for about 40 percent of the Clallam PUD supply — for as many as 7,000 people and businesses in a 24-square-mile area east of the city.
Vulnerable people at risk
Purser said shutting off that supply would put vulnerable people such as the elderly at risk from potentially contaminated water.
Life and property also would be at risk from fire due to low water flows, he said.
“The city knows that but — to use Mayor Richard Headrick’s words — doesn’t give a damn,” Purser said.
“I came to the PUD to do public service. This is one of the worst situations I’ve faced since I’ve been in this chair,” he said.
The city’s deadline for signing the water supply contract was today or the water supply would be shut off Monday.
