PORT ANGELES — The city has hired a consultant to improve a 50-year-old wastewater pump station that serves the west side of Port Angeles.
The Port Angeles City Council voted 7-0 last week to approve a professional services agreement with Kennedy Jenks Consultants to design and provide construction support for upgrades to pump station No. 3 near the corner of Marine Drive and Hill Street.
The not-to-exceed amount is $215,950.
Public Works Director James Burke said the pump station will be modified to meet the growing and future demands of the west side of the city.
The 1969 infrastructure will be upgraded with a generator and self-priming system to convey current and future flows to the city’s wastewater treatment plant.
The project is being accelerated because the pump station was damaged during a widespread power outage that occurred last December.
“We lost power out there and the sewage came up to a high level and compromised the electrical components,” James told the City Council at its April 16 meeting.
“We’re going to install a generator out there that will help out with that.”
Crews were moving portable generators from pump station to pump station during the Dec. 14 windstorm that knocked out power to all of Clallam County.
“As a result, that one overflowed,” Burke said.
“In the future, this [pump station] will be brought up to par where we won’t have that issue.”
Mayor Sissi Bruch said the new casings in pump station No. 3 will be watertight to protect the electrical components should there be another flood.
The city’s Utility Advisory Committee recommended the professional services agreement with Kennedy Jenks Consultants of Seattle on April 9.
Kennedy Jenks was selected among five firms on the state Municipal Research and Services Center roster based on its qualifications, Burke said in a memo to the council.
The city budgeted $900,000 for wastewater utility capital projects this year.
Council member Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin questioned the need for a consultant on the project.
“We have utility engineers on staff, and to do designs of this level of effort is really out of our wheelhouse,” Burke said.
“Not that they can’t do it, but the level of effort is pretty high.
“At this time, we don’t have a wastewater engineer on staff as well, which kind of complicates the matter, but even if we did, we would be contracting this one out,” Burke added.
“It’s a large project, complicated and has lots of integral components to it.”
Port Angeles has 17 pump stations that convey wastewater through 127 miles of sewers to the treatment plant, according to the city website.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsula dailynews.com.
