FEDERAL RURAL DEVELOPMENT CONTINGENT OFFERS FUNDING SUGGESTIONS

By Chris Cook - Forks Forum editor

A team from the United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development Agency were in Forks for a short, day-long visit on Wednesday, Dec. 12.

Even so, they left behind a long list of projects the federal agency may be able to help fund.

Projects discussed Wednesday morning at City Council Chambers and at Forks Community Hospital included: construction of a new hospital clinic, how to finance locally-owned tub grinder to profitably process forest waste, repairs to Forks City-owned buildings, help for the homeless, low-income affordable housing and even homeowner septic system replacement.

City attorney/planner led the morning meeting and coordinated discussions with Forks Community Hospital Administrator Camille Scott and others.

Perhaps the highlight of the day was discussion on how the federal agency might provide funding for the $4 million outpatient clinic expansion being proposed at the hospital.

A possible combination of a long-term, low-interest loan combined with a federal grant was one solution to the funding brought up by the USDA’s Rural Development Washington State Director Jon DeVaney and other members of the team.
Scott described the ground-breaking work the hospital is undertaking in creating a virtual clinic for local patients. The internet-linked system would elimininate the long drive to Seattle to see specialists some patients are forced to undertake. And set up regularly-scheduled connections with faraway specialists who would use digital images, electronic sounds and other internet links to work with patients sitting in the clinic in Forks.

City Public Works administrator Dave Zellar told of a looming crisis over septic systems that fail to meet the new on-site septic systems standards currently being put in place by Clallam County.

The federal connection could be an improved sewer system in Forks down the road.
Port Angeles Port Commissioner and Olympic Natural Resources Center director John Calhoun told the USDA team about plans for creating electricity in Forks by using steam from forest waste fires in what’s known as co-generation plants.
Calhoun told of a possible demonstration project that would heat Forks High School as the first step in bigger forest waste into energy projects in the area.

He said subsidies would be needed to launch the larger project, and that such projects could create a good number of jobs for Forks’ struggling economy.

“We could process waste here and reduce cost of trucking,” Calhoun said of redirecting waste from cedar mills and other local plants that is currently being trucked to Port Angeles and Aberdeen.
A tub grinder costing about $500,000 would be needed as a capital investment to make the project a reality.
USDA representatives said it is possible that rural development grants and loans combined with private funds might fund the tub grinder.

“We have to depend on what we have more than anyone else,” Calhoun said of developing the isolated, timber-based rural economy of the West End. “There’s no big software company coming.”