PORT ANGELES — Olympic Discovery Trail users were given a mixed bag of good and bad news Tuesday.
City of Port Angeles and Clallam County staff told an audience of about 30 people at City Hall that expansions of the trail will occur over the next few years, but also outlined how portions in Port Angeles will be closed for long periods of time, possibly putting the 2012 Olympic Discovery Marathon in jeopardy.
The major closures will occur in Port Angeles from the former Rayonier mill site to the Red Lion Hotel as the city’s approximately $40 million project to get control of its sewage overflows gets under way.
Glenn Cutler, city public works and utilities director, said that construction will occur during June 2012 — when the marathon, which uses the trail, is under way — and possibly during June 2013.
“I know you probably aren’t going to be able to run a marathon at that point over that location,” he said.
Port Angeles Marathon Association President Larry Little, reached by phone after the meeting, said he couldn’t comment at this time whether the marathon will be able to continue next year or use a detour.
“I don’t want to make any comments without having some more information about what’s going on,” he said.
Marathon OK this year
It won’t be impacted this year.
Kathryn Neal, city engineering manager, said Friday that closures could impact portions of the trail from the former mill site to the hotel anywhere between six months and a year.
Cutler said after the meeting that he didn’t want to comment on the possible duration of the closures since that won’t be fully fleshed out until after a construction contract is awarded this summer.
It’s also not yet known when the closures will start.
Construction will begin sometime after late October at the intersection of Oak Street and Railroad Avenue and at the trail just east of the intersection of Lincoln Street and Railroad Avenue.
At those locations, the city’s contractor will begin “sliplining” new sewer lines into the industrial waterline.
From downtown to the Rayonier site, the city’s plan calls for seven pits to be dug so that crews can continue to pull the pipes through the waterline, which is no longer in use past the Nippon paper mill.
The pipes will connect with a nearly 5-million-gallon tank the city acquired from Rayonier and its wastewater treatment plant nearby.
The tank will temporarily store untreated sewage and storm water when the plant is at capacity, allowing the city to reduce its sewage overflows from anywhere between 30 and 110 a year to slightly over one on average.
On the west side of Port Angeles, an undeveloped portion of the trail will be temporarily closed this year at Milwaukee Drive and 18th Street so that a sewer line from the Lower Elwha Klallam reservation can be connected with the city’s sewers.
That work is expected to start shortly, Cutler said, but he didn’t have a schedule yet from the National Park Service, which is handling that project because it’s intended to replace the tribe’s septic tanks, which are expected to become unusable after Elwha River dams come down beginning in September.
There was also a fair amount of good news.
Storm damage on the trail east of the Rayonier site should be repaired this year, Cutler said.
Also, a new Ennis Creek bridge will be built over the next few years that will reroute the trail away from the treatment plant.
Rich James, Clallam County transportation program manager, said that the northern loop around Lake Crescent should be done in 2012 and that 4,300 feet of trail will be constructed west of the lake this summer.
The city also plans to improve the route the trail takes through downtown as part of its waterfront development plan.
A bridge over Dry Creek in west Port Angeles was opened last month, although the tribe’s sewer line still needs to be placed underneath it.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
