Winds set plant construction back

Wind gusts at Spokane International Airport reached 55 mph Sunday and knocked out power in some places around the county.

Those gusts also knocked down some form panels at Airway Heights’ new wastewater treatment plant, currently under construction.

Bryan St. Clair, the public works director for the city, said Tuesday it would take workers about two days to fix the panels. The panels are used as a form to pour concrete that will be some of the inside walls of the plant.

St. Clair said the panels are held together with clips and around 20 percent of those panels were blown over in the wind. Workers will have to bring in a crane, lift the panels, put them back into place and reattach the clips.

He added that crews mobilized early Tuesday morning to fix the damage.

“They did a great job putting that together,” St. Clair said of the original structure.

The wind also damaged some of the panels, so it will take crews a couple of days to fix them.

“We still should be OK,” St. Clair said. The delay in construction should be minimal for workers.

Crews began working on the project in April, and the city expects the plant to open in 2011 or 2012.