The Carlsborg crunch: Businesses see tough times through sewer project

CARLSBORG — Grinning and bearing the impact of the Carlsborg sewer project has been tough for many locals.

Business owners along U.S. Highway 101 saw a similar scenario when the road was widened to four lanes from Kitchen-Dick Road to Shore Road, leading to less accessibility and fewer sales.

Along Carlsborg Road and its side streets, it’s a similar story.

“Everyone has been impacted,” said Lisa Deese, owner of the Old Post Office Sweets &Gifts, 751 Carlsborg Road. “I’ve been doing horribly. I’m down about 25 percent [in sales].”

Work on the $9.025 million project to connect the Carlsborg pump station to the city of Sequim via the Dungeness River Bridge over U.S. Highway 101 began in April and is scheduled to be substantially complete by next April.

Deese hopes she can recover once construction finishes.

“I’m not certain,” she said. “The Thanksgiving holiday is a biggy for me because I do pies, but that’s basically call-in.”

Deese isn’t alone in worrying about what’s next.

Several businesses say they’ve seen fewer customers and less vehicle traffic, leading them to cut back on staff hours and even days they are open.

Val Culp, co-owner of the Old Mill Cafe, 721 Carlsborg Road, estimates her business is down about $3,000 a week in sales.

“We’ve cut staff way back because you never know if it’s going to be busy or not,” she said. “When it doesn’t happen, we send people home. When you have six or seven people on and you’re paying all of them by the hour but only selling $100 worth of food, you’re going backwards.”

Meggan Uecker, solid waste coordinator for Clallam County, said crews for contractor Pacific Civil and Infrastructure plan to be off Carlsborg Road by the beginning of December, repaving it entirely over a few days in late December.

She said crews try to lessen the impact on locals. For example, earlier this month, construction was planned for five nights from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. along Smithfield Drive, but it finished in two nights.

“We’ve done our best,” Uecker said about communicating with businesses and residents.

Once they finish repaving Carlsborg Road, crews will travel east toward Grant Road, but some work will continue on side streets such as Business Park Loop, Uecker said.

Uecker said the finished paved road will include a two-way center turn lane throughout Carlsborg Road.

Culp said the Old Mill Cafe still sees its regulars — who know the tricks to make their way through construction.

“A lot of people get here from the alley — go down to Kitchen-Dick Road and down Spath Road,” she said.

Even businesses with direct access to U.S. Highway 101 report a change in clientele.

Julie Schumacher, co-owner of the Carlsborg Station, 20 Carlsborg Road, said in recent months, she’s seen an 8 percent dip in fuel sales and store sales from September 2015 to September 2016, and an 8 percent dip in store sales and 11 percent dip in fuel sales in October 2015 and 2016.

To compensate, she’s reduced staff from three to four days a week to two to three weekly, but she remains optimistic going forward.

“We have many loyal customers who try to shop [at] our store even with the road construction holding them up for 15 to 25 minutes,” she said.

Officials with public entities, such as Clallam County Fire District No. 3 and the Sequim School District, say construction impact has been minimal.

Jeff Gossage, director of transportation for the schools, including Greywolf Elementary, said when the project first started, it affected a few bus routes. He added that the most recent construction will impact a few children and that families have been notified.

“If we get enough notice, we can tell the families and make needed adjustments,” he said.

Deese said once she reached out to Clallam County officials, she began receiving weekly updates.

“After that happened, they’ve been completely on it,” she said. “I thought I was going to get the brush-off.”

Uecker said county staff and employees with the construction firm continue to go door to door to tell neighbors and businesses when construction will impact them.

Deese recommends that those who need help traversing the construction speak to a flagger.

The business side of Old Mill Cafe is only half of the concern for Culp. She and her husband, Larry, spent about $40,000 in June 2015 installing two new septic tanks at the restaurant they have owned for 13 years after county Department of Health officials told them they needed to install the tanks to keep bacteria down or face closure.

Larry said they offered to clean and drain the existing tanks weekly, if needed, to prevent the added expense before the sewer system went in.

Uecker said about 30 properties signed up to connect to the sewer line so far, and she’s received a lot of questions from residents regarding costs.

A connection fee is required, which costs $500 per equivalent residential unit through March, or $1,500 approximately by March 2019 or $8,000 after then.

Services tentatively will be available by March 2017.

Homeowners/businesses aren’t required to connect if they have functioning septic tanks, but no new septic tanks will be allowed in the Carlsborg Urban Growth Area. New construction and new property owners of existing properties must connect within one year.

Side sewers are required for those who connect, which can be coordinated with a county-approved contractor or a separate contractor.

Initial user fees would be a base rate of $26 and $8.66 per 100 cubic feet of monthly water consumption for residences and the same for commercial/government customers, except rates would be multiplied by the number of residential units each user represents.

For more information on the project, contact Uecker at 360-417-2441 or muecker@co.clallam.wa.us and/or visit www.clallam.net/PublicWorks/CarlsborgSewer.html.

________

Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach him at mnash@sequimgazette.com.