In the midst of the right-of-way acquisition process for the State Route 502 widening project, project engineers and officials at the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) said they have decided to split the project into two separate phases.
Chris Tams, area engineer and project manager, said there are several benefits to splitting the almost $88 million widening project into two phases. First, he said that since the project would be split in two, there would be two contracts, which would create more competitive bidding and open the project up more to local contractors.
"One of the main reasons we split up the project is because acquiring (the remaining) 170 parcels of land before the end of the summer just wasn’t going to occur," Tams said. "This is an effective way to break apart the project and still move forward."
Tams and Abbi Russell, WSDOT communications manager for the southwest region, said splitting up the project will allow them to begin early construction work, such as working on storm water retention facilities, before they’ve actually acquired all the parcels they need. Normally, if a project is done all in one phase, Tams said they would construct storm water treatment facilities during the same time as they were completing other construction, which can make the whole project take longer.
"After you construct them, it usually takes about a year for the facilities to become fully effective," Tams said. "It’s a real challenge to build them and be able to meet all the guidelines all while trying to do the road construction. This way will allow us to have fully-established storm water ponds and it will save money."
Tams said they hope to start building the storm water retention facilities in late spring or early summer of 2012. They hope to start phase two, the actual construction, in the spring of 2013.
"People might think that we are just messing things up during the first year of construction because that year will be spent doing utility work," Russell said. "It might not seem like much is different during the first year, but doing it this way will really help the whole process."
Currently, WSDOT officials are still working on the right-of-way acquisition process and are also working to develop the contract plans and permit applications. Tams and Russell said there are numerous permits that must be acquired for a project like this, including a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Department of Ecology, a permit to discharge storm water and more.
Another part of the project that Tams said can be done during phase one is the wetland mitigation. WSDOT is required to mitigate for the work being done to three area watersheds, including Gee Creek Watershed, Mill Creek Watershed and the Salmon Creek Watershed. WSDOT officials will have five different wetland sites that they are going to establish and six storm water treatment facilities. All this work can be done during phase one of the project.
"Normally, we would have to treat run-off water from our construction facilities in some way during the construction process," Russell said. "The benefit of building these storm water ponds early is that we won’t have to do that at the same time as construction. That will save us extra money and will also save the taxpayers money."
During phase one, WSDOT engineers will also work on placing about 2,000 steel piles into the ground of a peat bog area that part of the new four-lane road will need to go across. Concrete will then be poured onto the existing piles and the rest of the ground. A peat bog is essentially a wetland site with poor drainage and WSDOT engineers are unable to simply fill the area with more soil.
"If you were to place 10 feet of any type of material on top of that peat bog, you would be left with four feet," Tams said.
This will be the first time that WSDOT has used the steel piles process to fill a peat bog and Tams said it is essentially "new" construction in the State of Washington.
Russell said they want to remain on schedule as much as possible for the project, which is why phasing seemed like the best option.
"If someone needs more time or we haven’t acquired some properties yet, we will at least move forward with another portion of the project," Russell said. "We can lose some funding if we don’t stick close to our timeline."
Tams and Russell said WSDOT officials are trying to acquire the more difficult properties first, such as O’Brady’s Drive In. However, Russell said all the offers will be out to everyone affected by the right-of-way process by the end of the summer.
"Everyone who is going to be affected by this will know this summer," Russell said. "If we don’t contact you over the summer, that means we don’t need any part of your property."
Russell said WSDOT officials have been recently working with O’ Brady’s owner, Susan Brady, and neighboring property owners to see if they can possibly work out a way to replace part of the parking lot. If this worked out, Russell said Brady could choose not to move if she wanted to, but because of the fact that the restaurant is so close to a creek and because there may be no way to get around the property being land-locked, they have no idea if they will be able to work anything out or not.
"It’s very complicated because of access, the septic system and the creek," Russell said. "We are trying to work with everyone as best we can."
For more information on the SR-502 widening project, visit www.wsdot.wa.gov and look under Find A Project.
