PORT HADLOCK — Naval Magazine Indian Island, the Navy’s only installation on the North Olympic Peninsula, might be getting its electricity from Clallam County in the future.

But before the Clallam County Public Utility District decides to operate the ordnance installation’s electrical system in East Jefferson County, the PUD staff should take a field trip to Indian Island, General Manager Shelley Burgett told PUD commissioners meeting in Port Angeles on Monday.

“We’re still moving forward, but we want to take a look first,” she said.

Bellevue-based Puget Sound Energy — the electricity provider for Port Townsend and most of East Jefferson County, but not the Port Townsend Paper Corp. mill — supplies power to Indian Island’s electric distribution system at two points.

In September 2001, the U.S. Navy began planning to turn over infrastructure such as electric distribution to somebody else.

The Navy also was looking for someone to operate the facility’s water and sewer systems.

Navy decision

Burgett said the U.S. Navy has judged Clallam PUD’s proposal to operate Indian Island’s electric system — with voltage flowing along lines already used for the paper mill — as the best.

But nobody has visited the base, she said.

PUD officials are scheduled to take a field trip Friday and assess the situation before the proposal goes further, Burgett said.

She described it as in the very preliminary stages.