Get ready for a summer paving project that will go through the heart of downtown Hoquiam and continue east through the heart of downtown Aberdeen.
The paving is a state project, but the City of Hoquiam will piggyback on the work and replace sidewalks. The city’s 2019-20 budget includes $500,000 for sidewalks. It also includes money for stormwater collection and sewer sysstem improvement.
At least part of the state’s paving project was set over from last summer.
The Department of Transportation “is managing the whole thing; it will go out to bid as one project,” said Hoquiam City Administrator Brian Shay. “Ultimately, the city is paying for the sidewalks and the state is paying for repaving.”
Shay said the sidewalks on both sides of Simpson Avenue will be replaced from the “bottom of the Simpson Avenue Bridge all the way to Myrtle Street” (the Hoquiam-Aberdeen cityline). Sidewalks that are already in good shape, like those near the YMCA, will not be replaced. The street paving project itself covers a much larger area, from near the Central School in Hoquiam east to Breakwater Seafoods at the west end of the Wishkah River Bridge in Aberdeen.
The state has told the city it plans to send out a request for bids on the project by the end of the year.
As far as traffic impacts go, Shay is not certain specifically what kind of traffic control measures the state has in mind, but does not expect the impacts to be as great in Hoquiam as last summer’s water line replacement project, which included road and lane closures and detours.
Wastewater lagoon
The budget provides $1 million for removing the biosolids from the wastewater treatment lagoon located at Paulson Road and Airport Way just east of Bowerman Airport.
Shay said the last time biosolids were removed was in 2009, and that was the first time since around 1950. The city paid about $4 million to remove 7,000 dry tons of biosolids in 2009 and spent another $2.2 million to build a dike in the lagoon, cutting down its size considerably. With the now-smaller lagoon the city will perform this operation every five to seven years, said Shay.
Filling in a large portion of the lagoon in 2009 also made the property more attractive to potential development.
“The idea behind the filling was to create more industrial land,” said Shay. “Without that the BHP (potash) project would not even be feasible. They need it.”
Once removed from the lagoon, the biosolids are tested by the Department of Ecology. If they meet certain criteria they can be permitted for beneficial use, said Shay. Once the material is dried, it can be trucked to a local farm —Shay said there is one in Montesano that may fit the bill — and “if they meet the quality for land application, they are spread on fields that generally grow hay.”
Biosolids are not used to fertilize crops for human consumption, and Ecology has stringent requirements for how and where biosolid fertilizer can be used. Biosolids that cannot be used as fertilizer are disposed of in a landfill like other solid waste.
Pump stations
Two Hoquiam pump stations — Emerson and Riverside — will be getting some upgrades in the coming biennium.
The Emerson pump station is “a combined sewer and storm pump station and the pumps and motors are old,” said Shay. Because the Emerson station, at the corner of Emerson and Lincoln next to Al’s Hum-Dinger restaurant, handles stormwater, “everything we do there will be in line with the west levee project.” There is $100,000 in the budget for the Emerson pump station upgrades.
Known officially as the Northshore Levee-West Segment project, the proposed levee Shay refers to would protect the city west of the Hoquiam River, an area left out of the Northshore Levee design. This levee would basically surround the high school, three elementary schools and the middle school on the east, south and north.
About $250,000 in funding for the levee will come the Chehalis Basin Flood Authority. The funds were originally designated for the China Creek flood restoration project in Centralia, but that project came in under budget, freeing up the money for the Hoquiam levee.
The Riverside pump station, just west of the Hoquiam Farmer’s Market at Riverside Dike Park, is a sewer station only, “so we’re just specifically replacing some old pumps in the station,” said Shay. The budget line for the biennium for the Riverside station is $40,000.
Northshore Levee funds
“There is also a line item (under the stormwater section of the budget) for $500,000 for the North Shore Levee,” said Shay. That money is earmarked for expenses that will likely fall on the city.
Chenault water line replacement
The city will replace a troublesome water main in the 100 block of West Chenault Street just east of the high school and repair a section of the street damaged by previous leaks.
“It’s an 8-inch line where we’ve had water main breaks in the past,” said city administrator Brian Shay. “Also on that block is a section where the shoulder of the road has sloughed off because of the water line breaks, so we are going to be able to fix that section of the roadway at the same time.”
There is $85,000 in the budget for the project. Shay said the city plans to use its own crews to complete the work, which will likely occur some time in the spring or summer. There is likely to be some impact to traffic flow through this mostly residential area, details will be available as the construction season gets closer.
