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Council studies public-works maintenance plan as sewer flows, dryer outage and headworks expansion are detailed
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Summary
Public-works staff told the council their maintenance work will focus on inflow and infiltration reductions, basin rehab and a planned headworks expansion; staff said a sludge dryer outage has forced hauling and that parts are due next month.
Brent, a public-works presenter, told the City Council on Feb. 24 that seasonal shifts drive maintenance priorities: sewer system I&I work is concentrated in summer when flows fall and water-system work increases in winter. "Flows go down to roughly 1,100,000 on average for the summer months," he said, and "we hit over 4" in December, a fluctuation staff said is driven by inflow from roof drains, leaky pipes and groundwater.
The presentation identified three basins that remain original and one smaller basin at preliminary design; two larger basins (Mountain View and Angleside) may be split into multiple projects. Brent said the city is roughly "half to two-thirds" complete on pipe replacement in main downtown basins and will pursue grant requests for remaining designs.
On plant capacity and financing, staff said there are currently no regulatory "agreed orders" requiring immediate basin removals. The city manager and staff noted that when a plant reaches about 85% capacity the city must begin designing upgrades. "The debt service for sewer is... about 24,400,000 as of 12/31," the manager said, and staff offered to provide council members with the repayment schedule that shows loan amounts dropping off in 2028–2029.
Staff also discussed sludge handling: the plant's dryer is out of service, and "we're actually paying to move our sludge now instead of bringing other people's sludge in," Brent said. He reported parts are expected next month and that staff is studying whether on‑site drying remains cost‑effective given energy and labor costs.
Work on the membrane (MBR) plant also featured in the briefing. Brent said the existing MBR headworks capacity is about 0.4 million gallons per day (MGD) and that the new screening design aims for roughly 1.2 MGD; current daily flow to the MBR was reported near 0.23 MGD. Staff said increasing MBR capacity is part of a strategy to route new flows to the Norley diversion rather than expand the aging main plant.
Other highlights included the AMI water‑meter rollout (staff expects the project complete and contractor handoff by September), street and stormwater work (use of a "duck bill" backflow preventer to reduce tidal flooding on Front Street), and coordination with WSDOT to repair a storm vault bank slide on Olympic Highway.
The presentation closed with staff offering follow‑up documentation on debt schedules, basin design timelines and flow-history reports for the council. The manager said those materials can be added to the packet on request.
