Southeast Bench Water System Improvements Preliminary Design Report

A straightforward proposal to save Emerald City water customers $1.6 million

By Dan Schroeder

Here's an electronic copy of the year-old engineering study on the southeast bench water tanks:

• SOUTHEAST BENCH - WATER SYSTEM IMPROVEMENTS - Preliminary Design Report

This report was presented to the City Council at its work session two weeks ago. I attended that work session and got a hard copy of the report, but soon realized that it needs to be distributed more widely. I'm grateful to Mr. Frisbee for going to some effort to obtain an electronic copy for this purpose.

The most important page from my viewpoint is page 11 (13 in the pdf numbering), which shows that the two existing tanks that serve zones 1-3 have more than enough capacity for existing customers, including emergency storage and fire flow. Therefore the proposed 1.25 million gallon tank is entirely for the purpose of facilitating future development.

In my mind the City Council should amend the Capital Improvement Plan to remove authorization and funding for the 1.25 million gallon tank. This would save water customers $1.6 million. If future development, either by WSU or elsewhere, makes such a tank necessary, let the developer pay for it.

The proposed site for the 1.25 million gallon tank may be obsolete, based on what we heard at the work session. Instead they're now talking about putting it farther south, on WSU land, to be accessed from the top of Beus Drive. However, nothing is final so the location could easily change again.

And what say our gentle readers about all this?