Editing Centralia, Washington (section)

===Utilities===

====Communications====
The first telephone operations in Centralia began in 1891 when the city was connected to the Sunset Telephone and Telegraph Company (STTC) located on Tower Avenue. The first customer was a neighboring pair of attorneys. The STTC recorded 23 subscribers the following year, falling to only six in 1893, but began to slowly rebound at the turn of the century. By 1910, over 500 customers subscribed to the line, serving approximately 1,000 customers in the Twin Cities when the STTC was renamed in 1916 as the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company . By the mid-1960s, the area was served by [[Pacific Northwest Bell]] and had a subscriber list of over 12,000 between Centralia and Chehalis.<ref>{{cite news |title=Telephone Services Came Early - Chehalis Phones Busy |url=https://www.newspaperarchive.com/us/washington/centralia/centralia-daily-chronicle/1966/10-10/page-36 |access-date=July 31, 2024 |work=The Daily Chronicle |date=October 10, 1966 |page=A22}}</ref>

====Water====
{{As of|2023}}, Centralia Public Works was granted $85,000 to fund searches for lead pipes in the city, the only water utility in Washington state to accept monies from a $63&nbsp;million federal bill passed in 2021 meant to help find and replace lead piping. In 2018, the city investigated the use of lead pipes in the municipal water system, specifically for homes built from the 1920s through the 1940s. The city has found only five [[Gooseneck (piping)|pigtail connections]] made of lead since the late 1970s.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Withycombe |first1=Claire |title=WA struggles to hand out federal cash to find and replace lead pipes |url=https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/wa-struggles-to-hand-out-federal-cash-to-find-and-replace-lead-pipes/ |access-date=February 21, 2024 |work=The Seattle Times |date=September 9, 2023}}</ref>

Centralia built a [[wastewater treatment]] facility beginning in 2001 that is located on {{convert|300|acre|ha}} in the Ford's Prairie neighborhood near the [[Parks and recreation in Centralia, Washington#Discovery Trail|Discovery Trail]]. Begun from a [[Washington Department of Ecology]] loan that eventually cost almost $27&nbsp;million, the facility replaced an at-capacity treatment plant built in 1951 near Mellen Street. {{As of|2024}}, the facility processes up to {{convert|10,500,000|USgal}} of wastewater per day.<ref>{{cite news |title=Centralia wastewater treatment plant loan fully paid off 21 years later |url=https://www.chronline.com/stories/centralia-wastewater-treatment-plant-loan-fully-paid-off-21-years-later,372889 |access-date=January 6, 2025 |work=The Chronicle |date=December 31, 2024}}</ref>