PORT ANGELES — The Carlsborg sewer system is up and running with 18 parcels now connected to the $9.4 million infrastructure project, Clallam County commissioners learned Monday.
Clallam County has received applications for 91 connections, with more hook-ups expected before a financial incentive expires in April 2019, county Solid Waste Coordinator Meggan Uecker said.
“I’d say we’re doing well,” Uecker told commissioners in a Monday briefing.
“We’re expecting the folks will continue to connect throughout the next few years with that incentivized connection fee.”
Pacific Civil &Infrastructure of Federal Way, the main contractor on the project, installed a pump station on Carlsborg Road and mile of pipes to transport effluent across the Dungeness River via the U.S. Highway 101 bridge to the water reclamation facility in the city of Sequim.
Crews broke ground in April 2016.
“I was very happy as a whole with the construction,” County Engineer Ross Tyler told the board.
“Our team did an excellent job, as did the contractor. Now we’re getting into the operation part of it.”
The contractor is doing landscaping at the pump station and will be out of Carlsborg by the end of the month, Uecker said in a later interview.
Assistant County Engineer Joe Donisi told commissioners that the final cost will be $9.4 million, up from an estimated $9.22 million.
“We had a lot of bumps in the road,” Donisi said, referring to unmapped utilities that required the contractor to make adjustments.
Despite the obstacles, the county and its contractor met an April 1 deadline to achieve “substantial completion” of the sewer, meaning that water could be pumped from one end of the system to the other.
By making the deadline, the county secured a 0.25 percent interest rate on a $10 million state Public Works Trust Fund loan that was secured to build the infrastructure. The interest rate would have doubled had the county failed to reach that milestone.
Property owners that have a functioning septic system are not required to connect to the sewer.
However, properties with a septic system within 200 feet of the sewer main or a sub-main will be required to connect within one year of a change in ownership.
Residents and business owners who sign up for a connection prior to April 1, 2019, will pay a $1,500 fee. The connection fee will be $8,000 after April 1, 2019.
Sewer customers will pay a $26 per month base rate for the equivalent of one residential unit.
Those with meters will pay $8.66 per 100 cubic feet of water used per month. Non-metered customers pay a flat fee of $78.80 per month.
County officials say the average sewer bill will be about $70.
Clallam County officials decided to build a sewer system in Carlsborg for environmental reasons and to comply with the state Growth Management Act, which requires urban growth areas to have urban infrastructure.
A Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board invalidated the Carlsborg UGA in 2008, prompting the county to enact emergency zoning.
The ruling of invalidity meant that businesses would not be allowed to expand. They would also lose insurance coverage and be denied for loans, County Administrator Jim Jones said.
“At its core was the ability to keep businesses that were in that area who were operating an ability to continue operating and return sales tax revenue to the county,” Jones told commissioners.
The 332-parcel Carlsborg UGA supports about 1,100 jobs and is the county’s second-largest concentration of sales tax revenue behind only the eastern Port Angeles Urban Growth Area, Jones said.
During construction, several Carlsborg business owners complained about traffic impacts that resulted in reduced hours and days of operation.
Commissioner Mark Ozias, whose district includes Carlsborg, thanked the residents and business owners who were impacted.
“No construction project is convenient or easy, and this was certainly a tough one for many of them despite and including all of the extra efforts that were made to deal with all the wrinkles as they came up,” Ozias said in the work session.
“So my most gracious thanks to the business community and residents of Carlsborg for their patience and their positives attitudes as we moved through this.”
For information on the Carlsborg sewer, contact Uecker at 360-417-2441 or muecker@co.clallam.wa.us, or visit http://tinyurl.com/PDN-Sewer.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsula dailynews.com.
