Project to improve drainage planned

Spokane Valley plans to spend two to three months and $300,000 improving drainage in a neighborhood where heavy rain tends to flood roads and send streams through people’s yards.

The work in the Beverly Hills neighborhood between Park Road and the Dishman Hills will be the city’s first large project using money from a $21 storm water fee on homeowner’s property tax bills.

“This whole area up here is solid granite,” said Jerry Daniels, a retired engineer who owns a home there.

Because of the slope of the subdivision and the rock underneath it, heavy rain or a fast snowmelt can cause extensive erosion and temporary pools on some of the streets.

The city plans to fix that by putting erosion-resistant material at the bottom of existing ditches in front of the houses while improving culverts under driveways and roads. Crews also will install pipes in Beverly and Winter drives. Much of the diverted storm water will end up in a new swale and drywells built on city property at Hastings and Beverly.

“They’re trying to solve the problem,” Daniels said, adding that the plans looked sound.

Sentiments at an open house on the project Wednesday were mixed.

Some described measures they’d personally taken to improve the roads or drainage around their property over the years. Others pointed on large aerial photographs to places they thought the water could be routed that would be less disruptive.

The work, scheduled to begin in late spring, will limit access to some driveways during the day and could affect landscaping that has crept into the right of way in front of houses.

“It was fine until they put the sewer in,” said Stephen Smith, who has lived there for about 10 years and attributes many of the problems to the repaved roads installed by county contractors.

“I see that there are some problems,” he said, but described the project on the whole as the overkill because some of the problems have been fixed by changes made to properties in the area.

Project engineers said they will meet further with homeowners to discuss their concerns.

More information on the project and city construction around Spokane Valley can be found at www.spokanevalley.org.