Spokane Valley council apprehensive about CDBG funding

By John McCallum Current correspondent

Spokane Valley’s City Council vote unanimously at its June 27 meeting to continue participating in the urban Spokane consortium receiving Community Development Block Grant funds from the federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) department.

The vote wasn’t without some apprehension of whether those funds would be available to the city and other jurisdictions, or appropriated for one single purpose — funding for a regional entity trying to address homelessness issues.

City staff presented four options, two of which were presented as viable and only one — Option 4 — that was recommended. Option 1 would require the city to accept entitlement status and receive CDBG funds directly from HUD while Option 4 would defer status and continue as part of the urban consortium with the county.

Option 1 would give the city control of its allocated funding, but require a large overhead to set up its own department to administer the funding, with only a portion reimbursable by HUD. It could also lead to the loss of federal Home Investment Partnership Program (HOME) funds for the city and the region if a HOME consortium is not formed.

Option 4 would leave control of the funding in the hands of the county commissioners, but would keep the status quo funding formulas and could be handled by existing city staff.

The CDBG funding could be utilized by the Regional Homeless Entity, but under Option 1 the Spokane Valley Council would have to approve its allocation while under Option 4 that would fall to the commissioners unless an interlocal agreement is amended.

While there was concern from council members Laura Padden and Brandi Peetz about the potential loss of CDBG funding to the Regional Homeless Entity, members Ben Wick and Arne Woodard reminded the group that historically, CDBG funding hasn’t been used for homeless issues but by small cities and towns to pay for infrastructure needs they could not otherwise afford on their own.

In the end the council approved Option 4, hoping discussions will produce more specifics around the regional approach to homelessness.

Streets and arterials work

Spokane Valley road work projects continued to receive the go-ahead from council, with almost $8.146 million in preservation and maintenance being approved between May 30 – June 27. Nearly $5.42 million of that came in three projects at the May 30 meeting:

• Broadway and Park Intersection, $2,727,853

• Summerfield East Neighborhood Preservation, $1,407,000

• Broadway Preservation Phase 1, $1,282,828

Projects include street surface replacement along with sidewalk repairs and installation according to ADA (Americans with Disabilities

Act) requirements. Spokane County Water District 3 is using the Broadway and Park project to upgrade its water main in that area, agreeing to pay for the water main upgrade along with a portion of the project management material testing costs associated with the work.

At the June 6 meeting, council awarded a $2,727,828 contract to Corridor Contractors, LLC for Phase 2 of the Barker Road corridor reconstruction project. The project is the last of four phases to improve Barker Road from the Spokane River north to the Barker Road / Burlington Northern Santa Fe grade separation project.

The work widens Barker at Euclid Avenue, completes a multi-use path on the east side of Barker and widens a 700-foot section of Euclid east of Barker. Spokane County Public Works and Consolidated Irrigation 19 are also using the project to upgrade their sewer and water mains respectively in the area.

Barker Road / BNSF Grade Separation

Council approved eight new change orders for the recently completed Barker Road / Burlington Northern Santa Fe grade separation project at its June 20 meeting. The project opened completely to traffic this past April with a new bridge on Barker over BNSF tracks and a roundabout at Trent.

The change orders, totaling $192,930.39, range from paying for additional “work to construct and remove an 18-foot-wide asphalt shoulder to shift westbound traffic onto while the final road improvements could be installed at the east end of the project,” at $90,353.24, to a correction for an earlier change order for markup of rental equipment that was inadvertently left out, $366.48.

The change orders bring the total contract amount to just short of $13.49 million, about 15.92% more than the original bid of $11.6 million awarded to Max J. Kuney Company in 2021 but still below the engineering estimate of $13.9 million.

Six-year transportation plan

The council gave its unanimous approval at the June 20 meeting to the city’s six-year Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP). The plan lists 41 total projects the city hopes to address between 2024 – 2029, projects that range from major arterial and street construction to neighborhood street maintenance and sidewalk replacements and upgrades.

Eight projects are scheduled to close out in 2024, including the Mission Avenue Bridge over Evergreen Road resurfacing and Sullivan Road improvements from Sprague to 8th Avenue. Other projects include four railway crossing grade separations, 11 intersection improvement projects, the $1.5 million annual local access street work and $3 million in annual arterial preservation work.

There are seven “other” projects such as Broadway preservation from Fancher to Park and Flora Road reconstruction from Sprague to Montgomery, along with nine “safety, sidewalk, trail and stormwater” projects including along Appleway Trail, Ridgemont Estates and citywide. Homelessness and affordable housing

The City Council is continuing its review of the Spokane Valley Homeless Action Plan (SVHAP), which seeks to provide a “systemic, long-term response” to council goals of addressing prevention of homelessness and preserving funding for sustainable strategies for aiding city residents with these issues. The council hopes to adopt a final plan later this summer.

The council recently awarded $4 million from the federal American Rescue Plan funds provided to the city to five non-profit organizations dealing with homelessness and affordable housing. Those organizations are Family Promise of Spokane ($1.095 million), Volunteers of America Eastern Washington ($500,000), Reclaim ($1.46 million), Spokane Neighborhood Action Partners ($471,700) and Habitat for Humanity ($471,700).

By John McCallum

Current correspondent

Hazardous materials are a twoedged sword. From household uses to manufacturing processes, these powders, gases and chemicals create greater convenience and ease in our daily lives.

And yet, these materials can constitute a real danger to people and the environment if used incorrectly, or if released accidently. Most hazardous materials incidents are small and go unnoticed by the public, such as gas line breaks or chemical spills within a workplace.

But every so often, an incident happens that causes negative, sometimes deadly, impacts to the environment and the public. Ranging from the Norfolk Southern Railway derailment Feb. 3 in East Palestine, Ohio to the recent truck fire that collapsed an Interstate 95 bridge in Philadelphia, Penn. to local incidents such as the May 3 Inland Paper Mill fire in Millwood — these incidents require a greater degree of coordination, equipment and training to successfully combat.

“There’s a lot of factors that go into a hazardous materials type of event, which is high risk, but low frequency,” Spokane Valley Fire Department Deputy Chief of Operations Zack Bond said.

Understanding risks

There is a long list of materials considered hazardous. These materials harm the environment and individuals through their release, and can be flammable, combustible, inert material, health hazard or nonhazardous products.

Many municipalities take steps to separate businesses utilizing hazardous materials in their work processes, including zoning and permitting requirements asking those businesses to identify materials that may be stored on their property. In the city of Spokane Valley, new business construction or existing businesses undergoing remodeling are required to fill out and submit a “Critical / Hazardous Material Form.”

City Building officials say the form has two purposes. The first enables a review by the Fire Department to determine the level of hazards of an occupancy classification according to the International Fire Code (IFC).

The second is to “address secondary containment of materials and processes” that could potentially negatively impact the environment, such as the city’s water supply.

“Most often, the form is completed with ‘N/A’ to indicate the business will not store or use a significant amount of such materials,” Spokane Valley Public Information Officer Emily Estes-Cross said in an email.

The Critical and Hazardous Material forms are used by Fire Department inspectors during the construction permitting process “to determine whether or not the maximum allowable quantities of products / chemicals are being exceeded.” Exceeding these quantities could “impact the required construction features and fire protection systems required to comply with the IFC/IBC (International Building Code).

“As part of this review, SDS (Safety Data Sheets) are provided,” SVFD Media Manager Patrick Erickson said in an email.

Also known as Material Safety Data Sheets, these documents provide information about hazardous materials such as the substance or mixture supplied, ingredients and composition, hazards, first aid, firefighting and accident release measures, toxicological and ecological information and physical and chemical properties.

Bond with Spokane Valley Fire gives credit to first responders ability to successfully handle the fire at Inland Paper to mill employees providing a MSDS for sodium dithionite, the powder involved, almost immediately upon the department’s arrival onsite.

“It helped with identifying the agent and what to do and not to do,” he said.

Dealing with the transient unknown

While hazardous materials used locally are a concern, Bond said the danger comes from what is moving through the area via rail and highways.

“That’s the biggest target out there as far as hazmat,” he said. “There’s lots of stuff moving out there, and our concern is we have the only east-west artery for transport.”

Incidents such as the East Palestine derailment and the Philadelphia I-95 truck fire and bridge collapse generated a lot national media attention. But whereas the former elicited calls for more federal regulation, such calls for action from the latter were more localized.

And yet, according to the most recent Bureau of Transportation statistics, trucks carry more hazardous materials than trains — with significantly more accidents. In 2017, trucks carried 64.9% of the billions of dollars of material value, 61.1% of the 2.968 million total tons and 33.2% of the 382.5 billion tons per mile — one ton shipped for one mile — hauled, whereas rail accounted for 2.3%, 3.0% and 16.1% of these values respectively.

Incidents involving trucks carrying hazardous materials, including spills, evacuations and injuries, are far higher than rail. In 2017 there were 573 such rail incidents nationally, compared to 15,744 incidents on the highways.

Highway accidents involving hazmat carrying trucks has been rising, with 22,373 reported in 2021, while rail incidents have dropped each year to 378 in 2021. Much of this can likely be attributed to more trucks than trains, and a higher degree of external factors outside of the operators control existing on roads than rail.

Either way, Bond said incident response for both is the same: identify, isolate and deny entry. While all hazmat incidents are different, he said firefighters apply the same training used in all responses: protect the public, protect firefighters, extinguish the fire.

While trucks don’t come with material safety data sheets, there are ways to identify the type of cargo they are carrying. The Department of Transportation requires placards on vehicles with specific codes identifying the hazard class, a symbol for the type of hazard presented and a four-digit number identifying the product.

If the placard can’t be read, Bond said they are able to identify the cargo via a “road trailer ID chart” which establishes possible cargos by the shape of the container. If that fails, the fallback is the “Mixed Load Unidentified Cargo” guide, what Bond called the “worst case scenario guide.”

“At least we can narrow it down if we can’t immediately identify it,” he added.

In a worst-case scenario where firefighters can’t immediately approach the truck — either from fire or chemical release — Bond said they use binoculars to identify the cargo.