Fountain has more water than it needs

Construction workers building a new fountain at the Howard Street entrance to Riverfront Park weren’t counting on seeing so much water so soon.

For the past several days, water from the Spokane River has been draining into a hole being dug to house the fountain’s reservoir vault. On Tuesday, crews had hooked up a pump and hoses to lower the water level so workers could continue to dig in the rocky muck.

“We didn’t know how fast it was going to run in,” said a somewhat surprised Dan Seibel, project superintendent for Walker Construction of Spokane, the general contractor on the job.

The $1.5 million fountain is being built as a joint project of the city parks and recreation department and Rotary Club 21 in downtown Spokane. When finished, the fountain will offer a place to play as well as watch scores of water sprays choreographed to music and lights.

Seibel said the problem wasn’t likely to slow construction, which is expected to continue through mid-August. Seepage from groundwater had been expected since the site is so close to the south river bank, he said, but the water on Tuesday was pouring into the hole from along its rocky edges. The excess water was being pumped into a storm sewer.

Avista Corp. lowered the level of the south channel of the river by about 2 feet to reduce the flow into the hole. That left a ribbon of natural embankment exposed below the concrete walls and steps lining the south channel near the Howard Street Bridge and park Carrousel.

The plan now calls for digging a smaller hole about 5 feet deeper than the vault so that a “wet well” can be installed to collect river water, which will be pumped out while crews continue to build the fountain’s 14-foot-deep concrete vault. The walls of the vault will be lined with a waterproof membrane to prevent water from seeping inside.

The vault will eventually hold water and mechanical equipment for the fountain. The fountain itself will use recirculated filtered water much like a swimming pool so it will be safe for play.

Features will include more than 150 jets capable of throwing 3,500 gallons of water a minute into a variable pattern of mists and streams. Sculpture by artist Harold Balazs is part of the design.

The city Park Board agreed to provide $550,000 for the project from a park improvement bond issue approved by voters in 1999. Rotary has raised $850,000 in donations, but is still seeking money to finish its fund-raising campaign.