PORT ANGELES — The move by the City Council on Tuesday to make an effort to educate homeowners on how they can reduce their storm water that becomes sewer overflows goes beyond the requirements of its agreement with the state on what it must do to resolve the problem.
But it doesn’t change the city’s plan, as approved by the state Department of Ecology, to reduce its sewer overflows from excessive storm water to no more than four a year by 2015.
The plan involves acquiring a 5-million-gallon tank on Rayonier Inc.’s former mill site.
It would be used to temporarily store untreated storm and sewer water that would otherwise overflow into Port Angeles Harbor during heavy rainfall.
The plan has recently been criticized lightly by City Council member Max Mania, who has put his reluctant support behind it, and more heavily by the Olympic Environmental Council.
The Peninsula-wide environmental group recommended in December that Ecology encourage the city to resolve its overflows by disconnecting all roof drains from the sewer system.
Too long, costly
Mirroring the viewpoint of city staff, Ecology Director Ted Sturdevant in January responded by saying that separating storm water from the sewer systems would take too long and be too costly, leading to even higher utility bills.
The city is using low-interest loans from Ecology to pay for it, but homeowners are covering the cost through their sewage utility fees.
City staff members have also said disconnecting roof systems would only reduce overflows by 10 percent to 15 percent.
“While the city’s approach will take several years to complete, it would likely take many more years to replace the combined sewer system with separate sewer and storm water drainage systems,” Sturdevant wrote.
“During that time, combined sewer overflows would continue.”
Roof drain disconnections was considered by the city as a solution about six years ago, but staff and the City Council decided at the time that it was not cost-effective or timely enough.
Other cities
Some other cities, such as Bremerton, have used Ecology grant funds to focus on a disconnect program in order to come into compliance.
Ecology is requiring all cities with combined sewers — in which storm water runs into at least a portion of the sewer system — to allow no more than one overflow per year per outfall.
The Olympic Environmental Council’s Darlene Schanfald has spoken against the use of the Rayonier tank, saying she doesn’t think it will adequately prevent overflows and is at risk of a tsunami.
She said during a phone interview that she thinks Ecology is going ahead with the tank plan because the agency is tired of waiting for the city to resolve the issue.
“They just want to get it done,” Schanfald said, adding that Ecology has funded disconnect programs in other cities.
Deadline of 2015
The city has a deadline of 2015 to comply with the mandate. It could face fines of $10,000 per day if that deadline is missed.
Greg Zentner, a municipal operations supervisor in Ecology’s water quality program, said in a phone interview that the city was behind in resolving overflows seven years ago but that didn’t have an effect on what plan the state agency approved.
He said Ecology approved the plan in 2006 because it was what the city proposed and it met its requirements.
“It’s a fine way to address the problem,” Zentner said, adding that storage tanks aren’t a rare solution to overflows.
“I wouldn’t say that any one plan is better than any plan,” he said when asked if Ecology prefers disconnect programs.
“This is the plan the city decide to proceed with, primarily because it’s their least-cost option.”
The cost of a citywide disconnection program would be between $45 million and $50 million, city staff has said, while acquisition of the tank and design and construction of the infrastructure is estimated to cost about $42 million.
But the disconnection estimate is based upon a single pilot study in 2003 that encompassed one neighborhood, which Mania found concerning.
Mania told the Peninsula Daily News that he considers that study to have been “extremely limited” and questions its price estimates.
According to the study’s report, compiled by Brown and Caldwell, the disconnection of roof drains from 15 homes slightly north of Port Angeles High School cost on average $4,201 per home. The original estimate was $2,680 per home.
The higher cost was mainly due to the disconnection methods, which in most cases involved connecting the roof drain to a curbside stormwater gutter.
Pipe below surface
That involved running a pipe just below the surface of the yard to the street. That method cost $997 per home, the report said.
Initially, a “splash block” was to be installed on 13 of the 15 homes at a cost of $109 each.
But the report said that method was abandoned since it couldn’t be ensured that all storm water was discharged at a “safe distance” from the homes’ foundations. Splash blocks essentially consist of a concrete block that disperse storm water away from a downspout.
The report found issues with other disconnection methods that spread storm water over a yard, saying that the water table was too high and the soil’s high clay contact also presented a problem.
Glenn Cutler, city public works and utilities director, said during a phone interview that he found the pilot study to be adequate and didn’t think a larger study was needed.
He also said home disconnects alone won’t solve the problem; the city would also have to prevent street runoff from entering sewer systems as well.
Rain barrels, Cutler said, also would not be sufficient as a primary solution since they will overflow during heavy rainstorms.
But he said such barrels do reduce the amount of storm water that flows into a sewer.
Under the city’s plans, the 5-million-gallon Rayonier tank would collect untreated storm water and sewage much like a rain barrel collects rain water that falls on roofs.
It would contain the effluent until it can be drained into the city’s wastewater treatment plant.
But just like rain barrels, the tank is not expected to contain it all during the most heavy of storms.
Along with sewage infrastructure upgrades, which are included in the estimated cost, staff say it will handle enough to put the city in compliance.
The city intends to acquire the tank when the Port Angeles Harbor-Works Development Authority acquires the site of the former Rayonier pulp mill.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
