Federal funding is coming to projects in Grays Harbor County as part of a spending bill passed by Congress over the weekend.

As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-6th District, helped secure a combined $1.8 million for two projects in Grays Harbor, including more than $1.2 million for Elma’s new emergency operations center and police station and $500,000 toward the city of Hoquiam’s dam removal and drinking water supply project.

The federal government escaped a partial shutdown Saturday when President Joe Biden signed into law a $467 billion appropriations package, funding a set of federal agencies through September, after leaders in the House and Senate worked to move the legislation through Congress.

The bill included community project funding and congressionally directed spending, a system refined in 2022 that allows legislators to earmark funds for specific projects in their districts.

The Hoquiam dam and Elma police station fell at number three and seven, respectively, on the project list for Kilmer, who represents Grays Harbor County, the Olympic Peninsula, Kitsap Peninsula and most of Tacoma. Kilmer originally requested $4 million for the dam and $1.5 million for the station.

Elma’s Emergency and Public Safety Operations Center

The new federal funding allows the city of Elma to move forward with plans to renovate a building it purchased in 2021, that will eventually become a new police station and emergency operations center.

“We’ve been waiting on this for a long time, and we are eager to provide a police department that the city can be proud of,” Elma Police Chief Susan Shultz said on Monday.

The city’s current 1,300-square-foot station was built in 1980 and adapted for use as a police station and is severely insufficient to meet the emergency needs of the growing town. The existing site lacks audio, video, telecommunications, security and backup power systems, and there is no space for community engagement or meeting with the public, according to a news release from Rep. Kilmer’s office. It also lacks secured parking and assembly areas for emergency vehicles and logistics and does not comply with today’s building codes, energy codes or the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

In 2021 the city purchased a new building — kitty-corner to the station — that was formerly a church and before that a mortuary. The city plans to move the police station there, and co-locate a training center and emergency operations center.

Federal funding will pay for security improvements, relocating interior partitions, adding a parking lot and logistics section secured space, and ADA upgrades, a backup emergency generator, and more, according to the release.

“The development of a state-of-the-art Emergency & Public Safety Operations Center in Elma marks a significant leap forward in our commitment to ensuring the safety and readiness of the local community,” Kilmer said in a news release. “This project not only addresses the critical need for modernized facilities for first responders but also creates a versatile space for community policing training and public engagement.”

An architect unveiled designs for the new station in January, when some council members expressed a desire to have part of the new building open as a public venue. Shultz said the city still needs to finalize designs for the new station and come up with a plan for the future of the old station.

“Through the addition of an emergency operations center in eastern Grays Harbor County, we will be able to add a key component to our emergency response,” said Elma Mayor Josh Collette in a news release. “On behalf of the city of Elma, I want to express our deepest gratitude for the support in funding this project. We could not complete it without this help.”

Hoquiam’s West Fork Dam Removal and Drinking Water Supply Project

The half-million in federal funding is another rung in the ladder for the city of Hoquiam as it pushes for support to take out a dam on the West Fork Hoquiam River about 11 miles upstream from the mouth.

The dam removal project would entail the deconstruction of the second-worst fish passage barrier in the entire Chehalis Basin while transferring part of Hoquiam’s water supply to a source officials believe will be more sustainable.

“We’ve tried to focus on projects that create economic opportunity and projects that address a threat, in this case an environmental threat and a public health threat,” Kilmer said during a visit to the West Fork dam in July 2023.

The dam, built in 1956, diverts about seven gallons of water per second — about 10% of the city’s supply — from the West Fork Hoquiam River to the city’s treatment plant a few miles south across U.S. Highway 101.

Pipes crossing underneath the highway are more subject to contamination, while a pattern of warmer, drier summers make future water availability uncertain.

Chum, coho and Chinook salmon, as well as steelhead and cutthroat trout, all spawn in the West Fork Hoquiam. It’s estimated that dam removal will provide access to up to a dozen miles of new spawning habitat for anadromous fish.

In a news release, Kilmer said the project “represents a pivotal move toward environmental restoration and economic revitalization in Grays Harbor County.”

The city received a $1.2 million federal grant in 2023 to study if the dam’s function could be replaced, which paid for the probing of test wells near the treatment plant. Ultimately, the city hopes new wells can supply enough water for the city to tear down the dam.

The grant also paid for designs, cost estimates and the massive amounts of permitting associated with the project.

Brian Shay, Hoquiam’s city administrator, said the new money will likely contribute to final design and permitting costs. To cover construction costs, Shay said the city applied for more than $10 million through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fish Passage Grant Program and expects to hear back this summer.

Shay said in an email that Kilmer has been the “ultimate champion” for Hoquiam in pursuit of federal funding for infrastructure projects.

“We have been pursuing this project for over a decade and now with this significant federal funding, we are on track to remove the dam, install new drinking water wells, and upgrade the Hoquiam Water Treatment Plant within the next five years,” Shay said in a news release.

Contact reporter Clayton Franke at 406-552-3917 or clayton.franke@thedailyworld.com.

The Daily World file photo John Bryson, left, looks down at water flowing from the West Fork Hoquiam dam during a visit in June 2023. He spent 30 years working in fisheries, including participation in a study on the West Fork in the 1980s and ‘90s. He is now a Quinault Indian Nation tribal councilor.

U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer, left walks with Elma Police Chief Susan Shultz outside the city’s police station in April 2023. Kilmer helped secure nearly $1.3 million for the city to renovate a new station and emergency operations center nearby. (The Daily World file photo)