Richland Airport Tenants Questioned Over Water Issue

By Eileen Griffin Ray

On June 8, 2025, the Port of Benton held a workshop meeting to discuss how water is provided to the Richland Airport.

The water issue came to light after a fire at the airport in 2022. The Fire Department determined at that time that the water hydrants should be tested. The Richland Water Department was requested to come and test water hydrants by the Richland Fire department in the fall of 2022. That testing did not get scheduled until spring of 2025.

When the Richland Water Maintenance came for their scheduled testing, they observed several undocumented water lines and service connections in the Richland airport. Richland Public Works notified the Port about the unauthorized connections.

One of the original developers, Herb Brayton, was invited to explain the history of the arrangement between the airport tenants and the Port for utilities.

Brayton and others invested in the airport, starting back in the mid-1980s, which was valuable to both the Port and the city. The agreement at that time was that the minor cost of the utilities would be borne by the Port.

Brayton told The PNW Post that the deal between the airport tenants and the Port goes back to 1985 when he first started building. Some of the original infrastructure built at that time was to accommodate air races.

The deal was the developers would put in the sprinklers and the Port installed the water meter. The Port put in electrical service to support food service, vendors, etc. for the air races. The event brought in $20,000 in three days.

A few years later, a group of skydivers made a deal with the Port, Brayden said. They wanted a building for socializing, so they needed hook ups for water and sewer. Then the Mosquito district wanted service for their plane.

As the airport continued to grow the Port adapted to meet the needs and accommodate requests.

There was no provision for utilities for a new group of hangars built, but Brayton was able to make another agreement with the Port. He agreed to build a public restroom if the Port would provide sewer and water utilities to those sites.

The bathroom still works, is used by the public, and maintained by Brayton’s team, and the water and sewer utilities are paid for by the Port.

The Port manager continued to honor the agreement over the years so there was no reason to expect that anything had changed.

“If the airport manager says it’s ok, I was confident – I had 25 years’ worth of confidence in the word of the airport manager,” Brayton told The PNW Post. “It’s an agreement.”

Who Really Represents Taxpayers?

During the workshop, Commissioner Scott Keller stated that the amount the Port pays for water to service all the hangar tenants in this area averages about $100 per month. For 2024, the billing for daily water total is $95 – $104 per month, Keller said.

Commissioner Roy Keck expressed concern about the burden on taxpayers for the cost of these utilities.

“I am deeply concerned about the status and security of our utilities services including mainly water, sewer and electric serving the airport tenants,” Keck said. “It is imperative to understand what documentation and agreements support the legal and compliant hookups of airport hangers. We need to ensure the protection of the port’s assets and the integrity of our infrastructure. More importantly, it is essential to confirm that our taxpayers are not subsidizing airport tenants’ utility costs.”

Keck stated that the utility bill including water, sewer, and other items the city adds on has not been paid by airport tenants for 20 years and he accused the airport hangar owners of avoiding the bills.

“That’s a false characterization,” Brayton said “because I dealt with the Port and the Port was handling that.”

Emotional Issue

Keck continued to challenge the speaker while Keller asked him to take a “time out” and “be calm.”

“The whole intention of this workshop was to get the information from the people that were there,” Keller said after Keck interrupted again. “Let him finish.”

“The point is you didn’t pay for it,” Keck said again to the hanger owner. “It was your utility bill. Somebody had to pay for it, and it was the Port and the taxpayer.”

“The bottom line is all of my buildings were permitted, all of them were signed off occupancies,” Brayton said. “The verbal deal with the Port was to take care of the water bill, which I assumed included everything else.”

Cliff Dyer, owner of Sundance Aviation and tenant at the Port since 2005, also spoke at the workshop meeting.

“Why are we here in this setting doing this this way when it could have been done a lot cleaner, a lot easier,” Dyer said.

Dyer echoed comments made by other tenants speaking at the workshop that the Port should have communicated with the tenants, rather than leaving them to hear about the issue from newspaper articles.

The headline for a May 27 article in the Tri Cities Herald described the situation as an “illegal” use of water access by the hangar tenants.

Dyer said that the Port pays the utility bill because it was an agreed upon multi-use arrangement with the Port for a shared use facility.

“Why is it good for the taxpayers to be paying your water and sewer bill,” Keck asked.

Dyer explained that the original developers invested in infrastructure with the understanding that the Port would supply the water for the areas being developed. The Developers paid for the construction of a public restroom and to this day maintains it. The Port has only paid the water and sewer utility bill which also includes a small amount of water to a few of the hangars.

Airports usually are grateful for the developers willing to put invest into the airport creating taxable economic development for the community. Dyer said in the 1990s investments in the Richland Airport were welcome.

Common Dollars and Sense

Many other entities have shared usage, Dyer said. It’s just part of a lease.

“Your lease does not include water or sewer,” Keck said.

Dyer said it doesn’t need to be there because it was part of the infrastructure process.

“So what’s fair to taxpayers?” Keck asked.

“What’s fair to taxpayers is that they don’t spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to recover a dollar,” Dyer said. “You are talking about peanuts here when we are talking about a $113 million economic impact engine that is the airport. It pays over $3 million in taxes. You are saying that a $100 water bill is worth losing millions for?”

The bill in dispute is approximately $100 per month for the group of airport tenants which seems very small when considering the very large amounts of money that the Port is tasked with managing.

The audited financial statements for the Port report operating expenses for the year ended December 31, 2023 as $11,800,124. In 2022 operating expenses were $9,456,134. In 2021 operating expenses were $8,088,130.

With a very large operating budget, it seems unlikely that an expense totaling approximately $1,200 per year would warrant this level of inquiry and investigation.

“I am just trying to protect the taxpayer from subsidizing your bill,” Keck said.

“You have made that quite clear,” Dyer said. “I am pushing back on that. You are pennies for pounds here Roy. This whole conversation today is all over 80 gallons of water a month for the entire area we are discussing.”

“Nobody did anything nefarious here,” Dyer said. “They did it with the intention of helping the economic development of the airport.”

“If they don’t want to pay their water and sewer bill, they should not have water and sewer period,” Keck said.

Economic Development

“Your investment is being returned to you,” Dyer said. “It’s a good investment Roy. Airports are good. People don’t see it like you do. You and I have had a number of conversations where you hate the airport. We understand that. You think we are all a bunch of users sucking off the government.”

“I think it’s true,” Keck said.

“Thank you for admitting that,” Dyer said.

Another hangar tenant asked why everyone was wasting so much time and money to discuss a $100 bill. “This is a whole waste of money over nothing,” the tenant concluded.

Most of the hangar water bills are paid for by the Port, Brayton told The PNW Post.

Brayton said he was aware of one case where there was an illegal hook-up directly to the fire hydrant. It was discovered during a fire hydrant inspection. It was an issue with a contractor who had hired a sub-contractor.

Once the contractor was notified of the unauthorized water usage by the sub-contractor, he reported it to the airport manager. The airport manager directed him to go to the city to correct the error which he did. It was corrected and solved to the satisfaction of all involved.

“I paid $30,000 for the public building and you supply the water and that was the deal,” Brayton said. “The city is not getting robbed. The services are getting paid. The Port can just tack it onto the lease, or they can swallow it.”

“We are not hiding anything,” Brayton said. “To say that we are stealing water is unconscionable.”

Originally published in The PNW Post

https://eileengriffinray.substack.com/p/richland-airport-water-usage-and