The Waterfront Sewer Replacement Project for Town of Friday Harbor: 2010 - This was not your run-of-the-mill municipal sewer project. The purpose of the project was to replace the cast iron submarine gravity sewer which had conveyed the Town's wastewater across the harbor floor to the wastewater plant since 1969 with a new central municipal pump station conveying the sewage to the plant via 2053 LF of upland 10" ductile iron force-main. The existing line had been failing often in recent years due both to corrosion and the vulnerability of its exposed portions. These incidents had become a magnet for controversy in the effort to clean up Puget Sound.

The new project eliminated as much submarine main as possible, replacing the most damage prone portion of the existing line by pumping the sewage across town to a high point from which it flows through upland gravity sewers to the wastewater treatment plant.

The work included a new 22' deep x 8' diameter precast concrete duplex pump station, 2053 LF of new 10" ductile iron force-main, 1250 LF of new 12" and 8" PVC upland gravity sewer and 366 LF of new 8" ductile iron upland gravity sewer along with associated manhole structures and lateral tie-ins. Also, 1,680 LF of 8" cast iron submarine sewer and 1,400 LF of existing submarine side sewers (which proved impractical to abandon) were replaced with new 8" and 6" fusion welded HDPE.

As the Town's inspector and on-site construction manager Wayne Haefele & Associates, Inc. (WHA) scrutinized all of the work for general conformance to the plans and exact conformance to Brown and Caldwell's design intent. This was especially fun while the new submarine pipeline was being installed as Wayne and Matt dove the alignment regularly with SCUBA to verify and photograph the work. Since the construction began in May 2008, the project provided a steady stream of obstacles to overcome, most of which were related in some way to subsurface conditions. Difficulties in setting the anchors for the submarine pipeline; hard rock along the alignments of most of the upland sewers; oil contamination, unexpected loose fill and direct tidal influence on groundwater at the pump station site presented direct impacts on the construction itself and strained the Town.s ability to meet the concerns of neighbors, the merchant community, the shoreline permit and Department of Ecology. Through cooperation of all concerned these problems were overcome.

The system was started up in December of 2008 and apparently operated satisfactorily until odor complaints began filtering in from the public as the weather began warming up in Spring 2009. Investigations were undertaken to identify the cause, and several problems with the gravity lines receiving the pumped sewage were found which contributed to the situation. These problems were corrected by construction of a new dedicated gravity pipeline leading directly into the plant from the discharge point of the force-main.

WHA was responsible for daily inspection and construction contract administration; tracking submittals, coordinating changes in the work, answering or getting answers to contractor questions and reviewing progress payments. While underwater work was in progress WHA dove the alignment regularly with SCUBA to inspect and photograph the work. WHA was also tasked with permit compliance, making sure that such things as eelgrass, bald eagle and pipeline corridor provisions were either met or otherwise acceptably dealt with. Additionally,maintaining cordial relationships, keeping DOE informed and offering appropriate and timely suggestions was part of the job.