On Everett’s riverfront, expect parade of dump trucks

Published 10:11 pm Saturday, February 23, 2008

EVERETT — Help wanted.

A contractor who can spend the summer piling a mound of dirt roughly 15 feet high spread across a 45-acre landfill that closed three decades ago.

Approximate pay: $15 million.

Before you toss a shovel in your pickup with hopes of a big payday, consider this: that’s enough dirt to pile a 3-foot-tall and 3-foot-wide column for 358 miles, the distance from Everett to Olympia and back.

Twice.

“This is what we lovingly refer to as the dirt dance,” Everett city engineer Dave Davis said.

The city estimates the project will generate trips from a dump truck and trailer filled with dirt every two minutes, six days a week for 10 hours a days and for nearly three months.

This massive earth-moving project is part of an effort to compress the ground at a former dump along the northern leg of Everett’s Riverfront property.

A San Diego developer envisions building a $500 million, mixed-use project along the stretch of the Snohomish River in Everett. Part of those projects rests on the landfill.

The work will come in three phases, each bid out separately. The first phase will cost about $15 million and all three phases will cost a total of $22 million. That’s in addition to hundreds of thousands of dollars already paid to a contractor to prepare for the grading work.

The city will pay for the project mostly from the solid waste fund, a $2.50 tax charged to Everett households every month. The rest is expected to be paid from the sale of the land.

The weight of the pile is expected to compress underground landfill debris, peat and weak river sediment two to four feet. It’ll take nine months.

While tons of soil were spread across the landfill when it closed in 1974, a deep pile of garbage was left behind.

The land continues to sink every year as the household debris, wood and paper break down, making it hazardous to build on.

“It’s constantly decomposing and shifting and it’s not a suitable foundation,” said Tracy Ricker, a project manager with developer OliverMcMillan.

The California company, which has been negotiating a deal to purchase the site with the city, hopes to transform the mostly industrial site into a new neighborhood with up to 1,400 housing units and more than 1 million square feet of shops, a hotel, movie theater, city park, a kayak launch, walking trails and preserved wetlands.

About half of the land is developable, the rest is expected to be kept as open space and restored wetlands.

Even after the new dirt is spread over the site, buildings on the landfill will have to be constructed on reinforced concrete piles, drilled into solid ground 60 to 70 feet beneath the soil, which is expected to settle for years.

Everett certainly won’t be the first community to build on a former dump

Similar projects have been successful in Los Angeles, San Francisco and East Coast cities where developable land is at a premium.

“This is definitely a tried and true method,” Ricker said.

David Chircop: 425-339-3429 or dchircop@heraldnet.com.