SEKIU — The first phase in a long-awaited sewer upgrade for the Clallam Bay-Sekiu community will begin this month along Sekiu Airport Road.
Clallam County commissioners opened three bids Tuesday for a one-month project to repair and replace a sewer gravity main and side sewers on a 0.3-mile section of Sekiu Airport Road north of state Highway 112.
The apparent low bidder was Barcott Construction of Chehalis, which submitted a $416,378 proposal.
The engineer’s estimate was $372,960, County Engineer Ross Tyler said after the meeting.
Commissioners remanded the bids to the county Road Department for a review and recommendation back to the board.
The work along Sekiu Airport Road is the first phase in a multi-year effort to address inflow and infiltration that has caused frequent overflows of the Sekiu and Clallam Bay wastewater treatment plants, Tyler said in a memo to the board.
The Sekiu Airport Road project is scheduled to begin later this month and be completed in mid- to late October.
“Hopefully the weather will continue to play nice,” Tyler said in a Tuesday email.
Clallam County received state funding last year to begin the Clallam Bay-Sekiu sewer improvements, which had been in the planning stages for years.
Tyler told commissioners Aug. 24 that the project on Sekiu Airport Road would have a minimal impact on Sekiu’s sport fishing season.
“The weather window is kind of closing in on us,” Tyler said.
“To be sensitive to the inflow of sportsmen during the summertime, we just need to kind of fit these projects into the just after summer but just before the floodgates of heaven open up and we get a deluge.
“So we’re ready to go on it, and looking forward to getting it done,” Tyler added.
Commissioner Bill Peach, who represents the West End, asked Tyler to reach out to the Clallam Bay-Sekiu community to share information about the Sekiu Airport Road project.
“We’ll definitely be in touch with the folks that frequent that area … and make sure that the community knows what’s going on,” Tyler said.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
