Chelan council unlocks $2.95M for East Chelan Reservoir design, begins site selection phase

CHELAN — The East Chelan Reservoir project is still in its early phases, but Chelan City Council’s Jan. 13 meeting made something clear: the city is no longer treating it as a distant concept. It is now in the stage where funding is being activated, consultants are being selected, and the work is narrowing toward the decisions that will define the project for decades, including where key infrastructure will actually be built.

Councilmembers unanimously approved a Washington State Department of Commerce funding agreement that unlocks $2.95 million for engineering and construction management services tied to the East Chelan Reservoir project. Public Works Director Jake Youngren told council the grant covers design and engineering work, even though the overall project cost will be far larger.

“The project generally, the components of that, we call it the East Chelan Reservoir project,” Youngren said, “[but] there’s a whole lot more to it than that.”

Youngren outlined a system-wide scope, including storage, a pump station, significant valving, and a secondary connection to the north end of the water system through a transmission line that would add redundancy and resiliency. The design work also includes environmental review and could involve acquiring property or easements needed for construction.

The Commerce agreement is reimbursement-based, with the city billing monthly for eligible work completed the prior month. Youngren said the project completion deadline under the state agreement is June 2027 for the engineering and construction management work funded through the grant.

Councilmember Shane Collins asked whether that deadline applies only to engineering. Youngren confirmed it does.

Councilmembers also pressed on a question residents are likely to ask first: where will the reservoir go?

Youngren said the engineering scope includes siting work, with the city planning to evaluate up to three locations. “We’ll look at up to three different locations,” he said, and return to council with a recommendation after evaluating advantages and disadvantages.

In a separate first-look discussion that same night, Youngren walked council through the consultant selection process the city began after learning the state funding was secured. The city issued a request for qualifications, received five statements of qualifications, interviewed three firms, and selected Varela Engineering & Management, a Spokane-based firm, as the preferred consultant to begin contract negotiations.

The proposed pre-design professional services agreement is a time-and-expense contract with a not-to-exceed total of $463,000. Youngren told council the pre-design work is intentionally front-loaded around the decisions that will prevent wasted design work later, including confirming reservoir and pump station locations and identifying viable transmission line routes.

“It’s really hard to scope a project of this size if you don’t know where your tank’s going, if you don’t know where your booster pump station is,” Youngren said. “So what we decided to do is … let’s solve those problems, and then we can more accurately scope the rest of the project.”

Under the proposed scope, the city would evaluate up to three reservoir sites, two potential booster pump station locations, and up to three transmission main routes, with routes tied to siting decisions. Youngren said the pre-design phase also includes survey, structural analysis, environmental review, geotechnical work, historical and cultural resource review, and the early work required for property and easement planning.

Councilmember questions drilled into what “siting” actually means at ground level. Youngren said the city and its consultants will weigh factors like whether a location can physically support a million-gallon tank, whether soil conditions are suitable, how the site works hydraulically within the water system, whether maintenance access is feasible, and whether property owners are willing to negotiate easements and access.

“There’s a lot of components to that,” Youngren said. “Constructability is one … From a geotech perspective … willingness to negotiate easements and access … What are the hydraulics? … It’s the stuff we enjoy.”

Youngren also told council the consultant team has already been in Chelan as part of the lead-up work, describing “boots on the ground” time in East Chelan to begin narrowing options. He said the city’s target date for contract execution is Jan. 27.

The consultant team Youngren described includes DJ&A for survey, mapping, environmental review and transmission line engineering; LSB Consulting for structural engineering centered on the reservoir itself; and Budinger and Associates for geophysical survey work.

The state grant and the consultant pre-design package are not the only funding pieces in play. In her mayor-council comments, Mayor Erin McCardle connected the reservoir timeline to federal budget uncertainty — and to a potential future boost.

“The current continuing resolution budget at the federal level expires Jan. 30,” McCardle said, adding that there has been “back and forth” in appropriations work tied to the Department of Interior budget. She said the city has a $2.5 million request related to a booster pump station as part of the East Chelan Reservoir project, and that Sen. Patty Murray included the request in her work.

McCardle said the city is “cautiously, optimistically watching” as the federal process plays out, while also noting that federal timelines rarely move quickly.

“At the rate that the federal government runs, we’ll probably get those funds in about three years when it’s time to start construction,” she said.

Taken together, the state and potential federal funding tracks sketch out the city’s strategy: secure design dollars first, do the siting and early engineering that makes the project real, then align future construction funding with a clearer scope and sharper cost estimates.

For residents, the implications are bigger than a single reservoir name on an agenda. The project is being designed as a resiliency upgrade, intended to strengthen redundancy in the water system and support long-term reliability as Chelan grows.

The Jan. 13 council vote did not pick a final location or approve construction. But it did move the project past the phase of general intention and into the phase where maps, options, and cost estimates will start coming back to council — and, eventually, to the public — with enough detail to debate about in a meaningful way.

Andrew Simpson: 509-433-7626 or andrew@ward.media