PORT ANGELES — The project comes with a hefty price tag: $40 million.
But city Engineer Mike Puntenney said Tuesday evening that the city’s plan to solve its sewage overflow problem by using a large storage tank is the right choice for Port Angeles.
“That’s a lot of money,” he acknowledged, while speaking to about 30 people in the council chambers at City Hall. “It can’t be taken lightly.
“The question is: Can you do this cheaper and solve the problem?”
His answer was no.
Puntenney gave an hourlong presentation at the public meeting aimed at making the case for the city and responding to criticism of the project from some environmentalists.
The sewage spills are caused by stormwater overflowing the sewer system.
It’s a problem many older cities face since the solution for sewage and stormwater 100 years ago was to dump it all into the same pipes.
To solve the problem, which it must do under the federal Clean Water Act, the city is going to use an existing 5-million-gallon tank it acquired from Rayonier Inc. to temporarily store untreated effluent during heavy rainfall when the sewer system surpasses its capacity.
Additional sewer lines will be built from downtown to the tank, located next to the wastewater treatment plant, and improvements to the plant and pumping stations will also be made.
Opposition
But the Olympic Environmental Council has a different view and has criticized the city for not using what it sees as “green” solutions.
The environmental council said the city needs to eliminate the problem at the source by removing stormwater from the city’s sewer lines.
But that solution is not as simple as it seems, Puntenney said.
With that method, the city would have to not just remove stormwater from the sewers, it would also have to expand its stormwater system to handle the additional runoff, he said.
That would also result in construction throughout the city, rather than just along the waterfront, Puntenney said.
And it would only solve about 60 percent of the problem, the engineer added.
About 40 percent of the overflows is caused by water seeping into the aging sewers underground and through manholes.
Altogether, Puntenney estimated that solving the problem by disconnecting the stormwater and sewer lines, building new stormwater pipes and sealing the sewers would cost about $180 million.
It would also take longer to complete, he said; the city is required by the state Department of Ecology to solve the problem by Dec. 31, 2015.
Darlene Schanfald, spokeswoman for the OEC, said after the meeting that she thought the city’s estimate was a bit high, though she didn’t dispute that the solution favored by the group would cost more.
But she noted it would involve work the city may find itself needing to do anyway, such as repairing and sealing aging sewer pipes and manholes and expanding its stormwater system, which is already undersized.
“If you do that, it’s more sensible in the long term and sustainable,” Schanfald said.
“We need another mentality,” she added.
Earlier this year, the group dropped an appeal of the project.
Schanfald said the group still plans to challenge the project, but she declined to say how.
Drain spouts
The Olympic Environmental Council, a coalition of groups on the North Olympic Peninsula, also has urged the city to focus on disconnecting roof drains from the sewer systems.
Puntenney said the city encourages residents to use rain barrels or let the water flow onto their yard when possible, but he noted it wouldn’t do enough to solve the problem.
Additionally, he said, much of the soil in Port Angeles drains poorly, meaning that residents who do disconnect their down spouts would either have to tie into the stormwater system, which has its own capacity issues, or use rain barrels.
The project is expected to get under way in April or May, when new sewer pipes are slid through the city’s industrial waterline, which runs parallel to the Olympic Discovery Trail.
That work will stop before the North Olympic Discovery Marathon in June, Puntenney said.
Construction downtown at the intersections of Lincoln Street and Railroad Avenue and Oak Street and Railroad Avenue will begin around October 2012.
The project is expected to be finished in late 2015.
The level of overflows, which includes both sewage and stormwater, varies widely year by year.
In 2001, 1.78 million gallons was released, while 2006 saw 75.5 million gallons get dumped.
On average, about 32 million gallons is released each year.
For more information, visit www.cityofpa.us/CSO.htm#CSOsp.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.