City to buy two sites for future wastewater use

Spokane’s wastewater department is purchasing two parcels of property in northwest Spokane as part of a long-range plan to improve sewer service in the vicinity of Seven Mile.

Spokane City Council members earlier this month approved real estate agreements with Plese Realty for sites at Seven Mile Bridge for $300,000 and along Nine Mile Road at the northwest city limits for $170,000.

Dale Arnold, director of wastewater for the city, said the acquisitions conform to the city’s plan to replace existing pump stations in the neighborhood with improved pump stations at the two sites. Pumps are needed in the area because the neighborhood is at a lower elevation than the city’s wastewater plant upstream on Aubrey White Parkway.

He said that once the property is purchased, the wastewater department plans to work with residents in the area on designing the stations to blend into their areas. The work is expected in three to six years.

The goal is to improve sewer service to allow for continued development on land uses already designated for the area, Arnold said.

Elsewhere, the department is beginning construction of a wastewater overflow tank near Upriver Dam to handle combined sanitary sewer and storm water. The tank will drastically reduce storm-related spills of sewage and runoff into the river from the industrial area near the dam in East Spokane. The $500,000 project is part of a citywide effort to contain storm overflows in sewer pipes that handle both runoff and raw sewage.

In all, the city is installing tanks to cut spills from more than two dozen overflow points along the river. The project near Upriver Dam on sewer department land is the third such project serving five sewer lines. When completed by 2017, the department is expected to have spent $250 million on the tanks, which hold runoff and sewage until the storm flow subsides and the water can be safely treated at the city sewer plant without danger of causing a flood or spill at the plant.