Sewer line plan upended by quake

JOHN DODGE, THE OLYMPIAN

OLYMPIA -- The Nisqually Earthquake tossed the LOTT Wastewater Alliance yet another curve in its bid to build a sewer line from Tumwater to Olympia.

A $12 million sewer project -- already plagued by construction delays in downtown Olympia -- has been delayed further by earthquake damage to Deschutes Parkway.

The sewer line is slated to run beneath the road to Tumwater, but it can't be built until the state Department of General Administration and other officials decide what to do with the heavily damaged stretch of road.

The 6.8 magnitude earthquake Feb. 28 tore the parkway -- and the LOTT schedule -- apart.

It could be weeks -- if not months -- before any decision is made on road repairs, in part because the ground is still shifting and heaving along the Capitol Lake shoreline from the Fifth Avenue bridge to Lakeridge Drive, state officials said late last week.

"It presents all kinds of problems," LOTT executive director Mike Sharar said Monday. "We had expected to ask for bids on the project in early March. We could get cramped on our schedule within a couple of months."

The line -- called the southern connection -- is designed to carry the bulk of Tumwater sewage to the downtown Olympia treatment plant. The existing line is expected to reach capacity by June 2002, Sharar said.

The sewer line is constricted by a patch job resulting from a February 1996 landslide that severed Tumwater's two main sewer lines on a hillside at the south side of Capitol Lake.

The bypass around the landslide, which has not been affected by a new landslide triggered by the earthquake, was designed to last about five years.

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