BREAKING NEWS: Hawkins Companies asks county to seek $10.5 million bond for infrastructure

So apparently Hawkins Companies is not going to ask the county to supply water to its proposed development in the corridor (which would have been virtually impossible and very, very costly) and thus negating the need for its appeals for water rights transfers to be heard by the Pollution Control Hearing Board. Without knowing more details, I'm guessing the infrastructure it is asking for has more to do improving the mitigation measures for the Jones surface water rights transfer that Ecology deemed insufficient. I was told a while back by a highly-placed source that such increased mitigation would be spendy and could be a deal-breaker for Hawkins. Hawkins apparently has confidence that its' appeal will succeed with these new measures and that Moscow's appeals will fail and are willing to wait the year-plus it will take to resolve all these issues.

Whitman County must issue the bond. It's an investment in our future.

From the Moscow-Pullman Daily News website:

Hawkins Companies on Monday asked Whitman County Commissioners to take out a $10.5 million bond to pay for public infrastructure for a proposed shopping development on the Pullman-Moscow Highway. The project hinges on Hawkins obtaining water rights it is seeking and signing a lease with Lowe’s as an anchor tenant for the site. DeVoe said the county would begin seeing tax revenues from the development of nearly $400,000 by year four, and after the bond is repaid, tax income would be around $1.8 million per year. Commissioners will have two public meetings to discuss the idea of a bond, and hope to issue a decision by the end of the month.