PORT ANGELES — Work on Port Angeles’ ongoing stormwater and sewer line upgrades will close the most popular stretch of the Waterfront Trail — from Lincoln Street to the Rayonier site — starting Monday and continuing for four months.
The Waterfront Trail from downtown Port Angeles east to the Rayonier Inc. property, the site of a former pulp mill at Ennis Street, will be closed until May 15.
The trail will be reopened in time for runners to prepare for the North Olympic Discovery Marathon the first week of June, said James Burke, the city’s project manager for stormwater and sewer line upgrades.
The trail will be closed starting at Lincoln Street at Hollywood Beach roughly 1½ miles east of the Rayonier site, Burke said Friday.
Hollywood Beach will remain open, Burke said.
Pedestrians who want to access the east portion of the trail will be detoured starting at Lincoln Street going to Front Street, then to Georgiana Street via North Albert Street.
Pedestrians will then head east via Georgiana until Ennis Street, where they’ll head north until they hook back up with the trail near the Rayonier site.
The former Rayonier site parking lot at the north end of Ennis Street remains closed.
Pedestrians or bicyclists can still walk or bike north on Ennis Street past the “Road Closed” sign and pick up the Waterfront Trail by heading east through the parking lot and across the Ennis Creek pedestrian bridge.
Pedestrians will notice construction fencing being put up on the Waterfront Trail at Hollywood Beach starting this week, Burke said.
The trail closure will allow crews with Ferndale-based IMCO General Construction to begin installing three lengths of polyethylene pipe that will link up with pipe now being installed across the Rayonier site as part of the city’s combined sewer overflow, or CSO, project, Burke explained.
The CSO project, slated for completion in 2016, will increase sewer and stormwater capacity between downtown Port Angeles and the city’s wastewater-treatment plant.
The augmented piping is expected to reduce the “combined sewer overflow events” — the number of times untreated stormwater and sewer flows into Port Angeles Harbor during heavy storms — by sending the untreated material to a 5 million-gallon tank on the Rayonier site for storage before it is delivered to the city’s water-treatment plant.
CSO project
The entire CSO project, which started last September, is expected to cost the city $42 million and will be funded through a $20.10-per-month supplemental charge tacked on to each Port Angeles resident’s wastewater utility bill.
The city will keep this supplemental charge in place for the next 20 years until bonds and loans for the project have been paid off, city officials have said.
The trail closures starting Monday will allow crews to starting pulling three bundled pipes through an existing but unused industrial water line — a process known as sliplining — starting just west of Francis Street and running underneath downtown Port Angeles to Oak Street, Burke explained.
The sliplining will require crews to dig six holes, known as pits, one of which will be just north of the Red Lion Hotel, Burke said.
The pits will be placed 1,000 feet apart, Burke explained, with the easternmost one dug at Francis Street and the westernmost one dug at the intersection of Railroad Avenue and Oak Street.
Pedestrians will notice excavation for the pits starting at the end of January, Burke said, while the sliplining work should be wrapped up by April.
For more information on the CSO project and a map displaying the trail closures, visit the city’s Web page dedicated to the project at http://tinyurl.com/CSOProject.
________
Reporter Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jschwartz@peninsuladailynews.com.
