Fortuna to hear water bag concept

Eureka Times-Standard

Fortuna to hear water bag concept

By James Faulk The Times-Standard

Monday, February 17, 2003

FORTUNA — It’s the Friendly City’s turn to hear the much-debated water bag proposal.

At Tuesday’s council meeting, Carol Rische from the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District will give a presentation to the City Council regarding a proposal to export water from the Mad River.

Ric Davidge of Aqueous Corp. has proposed buying up to 6.5 billion gallons of untreated water per year from the water district and shipping it to points south in giant, 800-foot-long bags pulled by tugboats.

Other cities have already heard the proposal and the responses have been decidedly mixed.

Arcata officials declared their heated opposition to the idea, and Eureka recommended that the district proceed cautiously, to at least learn more about the concept.

The presentation will outline the history of the water district, provide an overview of its infrastructure, as well as an overview of contracts and deliveries. Rische will also talk about the proposal and give a brief presentation on benefits and drawbacks.

District officials have said the question to be considered is whether the district should consider the proposal, not whether it should sell water.

A task force made up of district customers will consider the proposal at a meeting Friday.

In other business, the city will once again consider approving a contract for City Attorney David Tranberg.

The city briefly considered switching to another attorney, but decided to stick with Tranberg, citing his experience with larger governmental agencies.

Tranberg is currently the city attorney of Eureka.

Meetings are normally held on the first and third Mondays of the month, but because Monday is a holiday, the meeting has been moved to Tuesday.

The meeting starts at 7 p.m. in the City Council Chambers of City Hall at 621 11th St.

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