Washington County OKs six-month closure of Southwest River Road for deep sewer work; vote 3-1

The Washington County Board of Commissioners on Sept. 23 approved a six-month closure of Southwest River Road to allow installation of a deep sanitary sewer required for the Witch Hazel South urban expansion. The board voted 3-1 to approve the full closure, which staff said would start about two weeks after the vote and enable construction of a gravity-fed sewer tie to a pump station at Davis and River Road.

County staff and the project contractor told the board the work requires extensive shoring and heavy equipment because the trench reaches roughly 34 feet at its deepest point and runs in the middle of the roadway. Steven Roberts, Land Use and Transportation director, and the county engineer said those conditions reduce safe space for flagging and that doing the work under intermittent flagging would more than double the construction timeline — from about six months to an estimated 11–14 months — and increase worker and public-safety risk. “Most of the available right-of-way is used up by this equipment,” the county engineer said during the presentation.

The project will serve a development site of 240 housing units and, according to staff, ultimately support more than 900 homes in the Witch Hazel South Village area once fully built. Staff said the trench must reach the pump station at the southwest corner of Davis and River Road and that shallower work farther south can be done later with less-impact methods.

Opponents told the board the closure would displace traffic onto local streets and pose risks for nearby residents. David Russell, who said he lives on Bridal Road, told the board he opposed sending an estimated 8,000 additional vehicles per day onto Bridal and other local roads during construction: “There’s going to be an unbearable amount of more noise, more traffic, and I think it’s wrong to send 8,000 cars down our road.” Another speaker, Duke Knudson, said the staff presentation omitted full master-plan documentation and disputed the project’s traffic and right-of-way depictions.

Board members pressed staff on mitigation and coordination. Commissioners asked whether the school district and emergency services had been engaged; staff said the district identified 12 bus routes affected, two of which would be significantly impacted, and that the contractor committed to flag those two bus routes through the work zone so buses remain on schedule. Staff also said the applicant convened a community meeting on Sept. 16 attended by roughly 50 residents and that staff will re-notify the community and service providers and post required advance-notice signage if the closure proceeds.

The county’s presentation included three options: (1) full closure for about six months (staff-preferred), (2) partial closure combining segments of full closure and flagging (about 11 months total), and (3) minimum closure limited to a 45-day shutdown at the pump station tie-in with flagging for the remainder (11–14 months total). Several commissioners said all options were poor choices but approved the full closure as the option that minimizes long-term community exposure to the trench and to worker-safety risk.

Staff noted two logistical points: (a) if the board denied the six-month closure, a minimum 45-day closure would still be required to make the pump-station tie-in; and (b) the official detour route would run roughly 12.5 miles (the county estimated about an 18-minute detour) using equivalent-classification roads; additional signing would restrict use of smaller local roads like Rosedale to local traffic only. The county also said advance notice signs will be posted and that access for local residents and emergency responders will be maintained by opening segments for local traffic while crews progress in stages.

The commissioners directed staff to continue coordination with the contractor, the school district and emergency providers and to complete an internal review of the county’s road-closure policies and public-notification practices for long-duration closures. The resolution authorizing the closure also requires the applicant to provide the legally required advance notices and to keep access for residents and emergency services during construction.

The motion to approve the six-month closure passed with a 3-1 vote. The transcript records the outcome as “motion carries 3 to 1.”