Should King County Executive Ron Sims select the Unocal site near the south end of the Edmonds waterfront as the home of the Brightwater Wastewater Treatment plant, double trailer dump trucks could become as synonymous with Edmonds as ferry boats and seagulls.
The project staff of the King County Wastewater Treatment Division estimates that the leveling of the hillside that was the Unocal tank farm would require the removal of 2 million cubic yards of dirt. If accomplished by truck, the Herculean effort would require nearly 200,000 truck trips at a rate approaching 1,000 a day.
As public works projects in the region go, only the massive third runway project for Sea-Tac airport would generate more daily truck trips.
Where that mountain would be headed, truck by truck, is unknown.
“Obviously, any contaminated dirt would go to a landfill,” said Christie True, capital projects manager for King County. “The remainder of the dirt is sold by the contractor and is considered as a part of the overall bid.
That would mean that once a truck left the gate at the Unocal site, its route could go through downtown, out to I-5, or across any of the arterials in south Snohomish or North King County. Currently, the largest demand in the region for clean dirt is nearly 30 miles south at the third runway construction site.
The Metro King Councy Council’s Regional Water Quality Committee is looking at alternatives to the massive truck traffic.
One possibility would be to demolish the former Unocal pier and build a temporary one at the same site. That would allow for implementation of a system that could remove the excess dirt by barge. A similar system was used to ferry materials in and out of the West Point plant at the base of Magnolia in Seattle in the 1970s.
Discussion of a rail spur has been broached but the small site, combined with the possible construction of the Edmonds Crossing intermodal transportation facility on adjacent property, possibly within the same time frame precludes that option.
The other site being considered is near Highway 9 north of Woodinville. Already identified by King County Executive Ron Sims as the preferred site, Highway 9 would cost more than Edmonds due to additional sewage lines needed.
Dirt removal at Highway 9 would amount to about 250 trucks per day and a rail spur would likely be built that could not only eliminate truck traffic for dirt, but could also be used to deliver supplies and remove sludge once the plant is operational.
While truck traffic alone would be a concern to the residents of Woodway and Edmonds, the cities adjoining the site, Edmonds Mayor Gary Haakenson felt that the draft environmental impact statement failed to address another component of moving 2 million cubic yards of dirt, the geology.
“Of course, we are concerned about the impact of the truck traffic,” he said. “But I am also concerned about the geological impacts. Nothing has been said about what that might do to the stability of the hillside.”
Snohomish County Council member Gary Nelson has concerns about traffic generated by the leveling of the hillside, no matter what method is used to remove dirt from the site.
“I was not happy with the forecast about the possible truck traffic,” he said. “The proposal to build a conveyor system to load it on to barges seems impractical given how close it is to a major marina and the ferry traffic.”
The final environmental impact statement, answering the concerns raised by responses to the draft version, is due out this summer with Sims making a decision on the final site for Brightwater by the end of 2003.
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