PORT TOWNSEND — Construction on Port Townsend’s $3.2 million Water Street sewer replacement project has begun and is expected to continue through mid-May.
Originally planned to begin on Jan. 10, the project was delayed until Monday in the contracting process, said Andre Harper, a city project manager.
“Once the general contractor, ACI, was contracted the project, they had to assess their workload, their mobilization process, and after assessing all those things, they needed to push back the schedule for a couple weeks, which has no overall impact to the schedule,” Harper said.
Work will take place between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m., according to a press release.
The project is planned to stretch a section of Water Street from several hundred feet southwest of the ferry terminal intersection to the corner of Water Street and Gaines Street.
The project has a lot of moving parts, Harper said in a November interview.
The repair and replacement project will involve two main sub-projects, Harper said. One will extend the Monroe lift force mainline by 1,850 feet, using a method called horizontal directional drilling (HDD).
The other will involve retrofitting about 1,830 feet of pre-existing asbestos concrete (AC) pipe by “sliplining” a smaller pipe into the existing pipe.
Both projects will use high-density polyethylene (HDPE), Harper said.
Harper said that, to his knowledge, pipe slated for replacement and repair is original to the 1966 installation of the sewer system.
The Water Street sewer main serves most of downtown Port Townsend and some of uptown, Harper said in November.
“The sewer main along Water Street is one of the main arteries that, after collection through the Monroe lift station, feeds back to our wastewater treatment plant via the Gaines Street pump station,” Harper said.
Costs
Beyond the $2.3 million contract with ACI, monies spent have gone toward consulting, design work, administration work and archeological site-monitoring, Harper said.
“One of the key cost adders that was unexpected was the emergency repair work that was performed back in, I think it was August 2024, when we had a pipe failure at the intersection,” Harper said. “We did not anticipate that cost.”
In addition to the pipe failure near the intersection of Water Street and the ferry terminal, a section of pipe close to Gaines Street failed in December 2022.
Early progress
Progress has occurred since Monday, Harper said.
“Aside from mobilization and traffic control cordoning-off, we’ve also had contractor training of archeological unintended finds,” Harper said.
An archaeologist was onsite from Willamette Cultural Resources, Harper said.
“What was done (Monday) was they dug the first pit for horizontal directional drilling,” Harper said. “We are expecting that the additional three pits along the alignment will be dug over the course of this week, then the drillers will come in and do the HDD, horizontal directional drilling.”
Harper met with the management team at the ferry terminal on Tuesday.
“We talked about keeping the aisles open, both inbound and outbound, for the ferry terminal,” Harper said. “We’re coordinating with the WSDOT.”
Corridor considerations
“The plan is to reduce the traffic to one lane in each direction with flaggers,” Harper said.
Harper said there is a possibility of detours, but they are not planned.
On the bluff side of the street, a lane will be closed and the bike lane will be closed with open pits for sewer connections. Pits will be closed during non-construction hours, according to a city press release.
Business and residential parking will be open throughout the construction area, barring the angled street parking behind the Triangle building on Water Street, between Gaines Street and state Highway 20. The area will be used for equipment storage and material staging, Harper said.
The press release said the first part of the project will include asphalt and construction sawcutting, which will generate construction noise during work hours.
The city council authorized city manager John Mauro to enter the city into a contract with ACI Inc. in November.
For more information and updates on the project, visit the city’s dedicated project webpage, https://cityofpt.us/engagept/page/water-street-sewer-replacement-project-0.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@sequimgazette.com.
