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THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 2015
Vol. CXXIV, No. 112
OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE CITY OF TACOMA Devoted to the Courts, Real Estate, Finance, Industrial Activities, and Publication of Legal Notices Visit our Web site at at www.tacomadailyindex.com
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The City of Tacoma recently completed a nearly $10 million project to build a 2,500-foot-long floodwall that aims to protect the Central Wastewater Treatment Plant. (PHOTO BY TODD MATTHEWS)
Tacoma floodwall aims to protect wastewater treatment plant, Commencement Bay By Todd Matthews, Editor The next time heavy rain falls and the Puyallup River threatens to overflow, employees at the City of Tacoma's Central Wastewater Treatment Plant won't be scrambling to stack sandbags. A new 2,500-foot-long, nearly $10 million wall is expected to provide protection. One year ago this month, the City broke ground on a project to construct the imposing barrier, which is the color of old pennies and shaped into corrugated ridges and grooves that aim to bolster its rigidity. The wall ranges from one to eight feet high, and extends as deep as 25 feet into the ground. "There's a long story going back to 1997, which was our first major flood event where we almost lost this plant," said City of Tacoma Environmental Services Manager Mike Slevin during a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Weds., June 3, to mark the project's completion. "There was another time in the 2000's when we came close— not quite as bad as the 1997 event. So it's been almost 20 years now that we have been working on trying to find a way to protect this very critical and crucial asset."
According to Slevin and other City officials, a major flooding event would potentially destroy equipment at the plant and cause millions of gallons of untreated wastewater from Tacoma, Fircrest, Fife, and unincorporated Pierce County to overflow into Commencement Bay and Puget Sound. Visitors to the plant can pass through the new wall via six access points: three hydrostatic lift gates are designed to activate automatically in the event of a major storm or flood, while the other gates would be closed manually. The project was paid for using approximately $3 million in utility customer rates, as well as approximately $6 million in Pierce County Flood Control Zone District funds. The project was designed by CH2M Hill and City staff. The contractor was IMCO General Construction. According to City staff, the project was completed within budget and two months ahead of schedule. "Almost seven years ago, when I first became county executive, the third day on the job my department of emergency management director came in and said, 'You need to sign a declaration of emergency for Pierce County,'" recalled Pierce
County Executive Pat McCarthy. "We went out along with the secretary of the Washington State Department of Transportation and others to stand on the edge of the Puyallup River and [it was] looking that it very well may go over. The devastation that would be, not just to that place where we were located, more in the Puyallup area, but really all of the upriver and downriver—and what that devastation would have potentially been here for the treatment center." One of the biggest project challenges was to build a section of the wall around a 48-inch water main that serves many industries in the area. "The water main is extremely important to a lot of the industries in the tide flats," said Slevin. "Keeping that line in service while all of this took place—you can imagine how deep some of these piles are. Pounding around that pipe and protecting that pipe was really crucial . . . I was not sleeping very well the three or four days that they were working around that water main. When I got the call that they were done and it was through, I was very happy." Tacoma's Central Wastewater Treatment Plant, which is situated adjacent to the Puyallup River, was built in 1952, expanded in 1979, and underwent significant upgrades in 1988 and 2009. During the ribbon-cutCONTINUED ting ceremony last week, ON PAGE 2