Water system failure leads to increased plot costs

Saddle Shoes, Early Beatles, and Kennedy.

The Washtucna Pioneer Cemetery was formed into Adams County Cemetery District No. 1 in 1961. Used pipes were purchased to bring water from downtown all the way up to the cemetery. Those pipes have done an amazing service for over 50 years.

But now they are starting to fail.

A break was located across from Java Bloom and Wayne Johnstone, Mike Ebert, Kelly Olson, Steve Sullivan, Brian Dainty, Byron Allen, and Paul McKenzie dug out and worked on repairs. Mike McKenzie made the necessary arrangements to dig. The current cemetery board (Wayne Johnstone, Mike Ebert, Lora Hille) is looking into drilling a well at or near the site of the cemetery.

We still have some research to do, but at initial inquiry it looks like drilling a 400 foot well up there would run between $11,000 to $15,500, depending on the size of pipe used. (Larger pipe would enable more watering.)

That’s not factoring in any permits needed, or whether we would be able to access water rights. I was curious as to whether it would be cost effective to somehow just get water to the trees up there, and let the cemetery “go natural”.

It was explained to me that the dry dirt on top of all of that rock would make it extremely difficult to dig graves, and the dry dirt wouldn’t hold an adequate grave hole. Also water would need to be brought up by truck to the water the trees, I would estimate three to four trips, every other day.

We would need to raise a substantial amount to complete the well project or replace our existing pipes. We have decided to raise the cost of cemetery plots to $300 effective Aug. 1, 2014. The plots have been $200 for many years.

As a reminder, persons purchasing plots need to be Washtucna residents, relatives of a Washtucna resident, or somehow affiliated with Washtucna in the past or present. We want to thank the community for their outstanding support.

Lora Hille, Washtucna