PORT ANGELES — Work on the downtown First Street stormwater project is unfolding right on schedule, according to Mike Puntenney, Port Angeles city engineer.
Paving between Oak and Laurel streets was expected to be completed Thursday night, said Puntenney, and crews will begin work east of Laurel on Monday.
“We’re moving on to the next piece,” he added.
“We’re still on track.
“What we proposed to the downtown community about a week and a half ago, we’re exactly where we said we were going to be.”
The First Street stormwater project could be done by May 24, he said then, well ahead of Memorial Day.
The contractor, Road Construction Northwest Inc., was initially scheduled to be done in mid- to late June.
The First Street project is intended to remove enough stormwater from the city’s sewer system to offset the contribution of sewage from the Lower Elwha Klallam reservation.
The tribe will be connected to the city’s sewers because it is expected that its septic tanks will become unusable as the groundwater level rises as a result of the removal of the two Elwha River dams.
The removal of the 108-foot Elwha Dam and the 210-foot Glines Canyon Dam is to begin in September and be finished in three years.
Workers will install pipe east of Laurel Street next week, beginning Monday. They then will install the catch basin lines and connect them to the stormwater main.
Work will be done in the south travel and parking lanes. Traffic is expected to be reduced to one lane.
Where work is done
Since starting in February, RCNI has finished placing a new stormwater pipe under the south lane of First Street between Valley and Oak streets.
Before finishing, the north lane of the road between Valley and Laurel streets will be repaved, bike lanes will be added, and crosswalks will be replaced.
The south lane of First Street between Laurel and Lincoln streets also will be repaved. Fog seal will be applied to the north lane of that block.
All businesses and sidewalks in the area remain open during construction.
The project has a price tag of about $2.25 million, according to the city, with the city contributing $225,000 for street paving and the rest coming from the National Park Service.
Part of dam removal
The park service is covering that cost because the project is part of its $324.7 million Elwha River Restoration Project, the goal of which is to restore salmon habitat.
The Park Service agreed to fund a stormwater disconnect project to offset the impact on the city’s sewage overflow problem.
For more information about the First Street project, visit http://tinyurl.com/5s2cybp.
