(Click to see full-size map, as PDF)
ORIGINAL 11:56 PM TUESDAY REPORT: 200 homes in Highland Park will only get trash pickup every two weeks, for six months, starting in July. You might have heard about the city’s “One Less Truck” pilot program, to see if every-other-week pickup will work (explained here); tonight, we learned that part of West Seattle will be in the program. Carl Woestwin of Seattle Public Utilities made the announcement during the WS Crime Prevention Council meeting tonight (though trash pickup has nothing to do with the group’s usual scope). The area affected is bounded by SW Barton on the north, SW Roxbury to the south, 15th SW to the west, and 11th SW to the east.

Woestwin says homes from single-family through fourplexes in the area will be required to participate, and will get a $100 stipend for their trouble. All the affected homes have been notified via letters and/or flyers, he said. They can choose to get larger trash containers, or try to see if they can make it work, and that’s what the experiment is for. Woestwin said that the city estimates changing to every-other-week pickup could save $6 million citywide. This part of Highland Park is the only test area in West Seattle and one of only four citywide; a community meeting is planned in early June (he wasn’t sure of the date – we’ll seek confirmation Wednesday) and then SPU will come back to the neighborhood in September “to find out how they’re going.”

ADDED 11:25 AM: We followed up this morning with SPU, whose Brett Stav provided some information, including the FAQ they have put together (apparently, though, it is not on their website, because, he says, “We’re trying to keep the study as scientific as possible and avoid confusing our non-participating customers, so we haven’t broadly advertised this project outside of the participating neighborhoods”) and the rate card for participants – read on:

First, the rates. Here’s the rate card (PDF) that has been mailed to the participating households, according to Stav. Note that if a participant already have one of the smallest trash containers, the rate reduction during the six-month experiment is small – a one-dollar reduction from the $17 monthly rate for “microcan” users” – but those with the largest container, 96 gallons, will see their monthly rates more than halved (from $84 to $39).

Second, here’s the FAQ:

What is this “One Less Truck Project” that the Seattle City Council is considering?

The Seattle City Council has asked Seattle Public Utilities to conduct a six-month study of the effects of every-other-week garbage collection among 800 single-family homes in Seattle.

What are the benefits of every-other-week garbage collection?

Seattle Public Utilities estimates that citywide every-other-week garbage collection will reduce waste sent to the landfill, increase recycling, reduce noise, air and traffic pollution, and save $6.4 million on Seattle’s annual garbage system collection costs.

When will this project begin?

The six-month project will start on July 1, 2012, and end on December 31, 2012.

Where will this project take place? How will these areas be chosen?

Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) will choose approximately 800 households in four areas of the city that closely reflect Seattle’s overall demographic population. SPU staff chose pilot areas with several considerations in mind, including geography, age, income, race and garbage-service level that best reflect the city’s overall makeup. By making the pilot program representative of diverse Seattle residents, SPU will be able to accurately observe what would happen if the entire city switched to every-other-week garbage collection.

One Less Truck Project areas include:
30th Ave NE to 35th Ave NE/NE 85th St. to NE 90th St.
31st Ave S to 34th Ave S/S Dearborn to S Day
Rainier Ave to 45th S/S Clover to S Kenyon 11th Ave SW to 15th SW/SW Barton to SW Roxbury

Can I opt-in to the every-other-week garbage program?

No. In order to keep the results of the program as scientific as possible, volunteers cannot be accepted.

Is leaving garbage out for two weeks sanitary?

The King County Public Health Department has approved every-other-week garbage collection. Other cities that have implemented every-other-week garbage service, including Olympia and Renton, have not found any measureable increases in odors or pests. Now that food waste is allowed in weekly curbside food and yard collection, there aren’t a lot of things left in the garbage that would cause odors.

When will the City of Seattle switch to citywide every-other-week garbage collection?

The results of this every-other-week garbage program will be used to help city officials decide whether to launch citywide every-other-week garbage collection, possibly as early as 2015.

Again, this ONLY is affecting a 200-household area in Highland Park during the July-to-January test – the only area in West Seattle that’s part of the pilot project – but its results will be reviewed, along with three similarly sized areas elsewhere in the city, to determine whether to try it citywide.

(King County rendering from March community meeting in Sunrise Heights)
Wednesday night’s Delridge Neighborhoods District Council includes an update on one of the most vigorously debated public-works projects planned for West Seattle, the Barton Pump Station basin combined-sewer-overflow-control project – “bioswales” (raingardens) in planting strips along multiple streets in the Sunrise Heights/Westwood area, to reduce the water going into the system and downhill to the pump station. The presentation, including project manager Mary Wohleb, is scheduled for around 7:20 pm during the DNDC meeting, which begins at 7 pm at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center (4408 Delridge Way SW). The county’s most recent community presentations were in March; here’s our coverage.

1:53 PM UPDATE: Just heard back from Scott Thomsen at City Light. He says the outage is affecting 2,061 homes/businesses. They’re not sure about the cause but he says dispatchers got a report of “balloons in the wires” somewhere in the area – and if that’s the problem, he says, it should be a quick fix (p.s., Scott adds, please DON’T release balloons, especially the mylar ones, they’re bad news for power lines); if that’s not the cause, it may not be so quick. The boundaries SCL lists – which are never precise, so this does NOT mean everyone in this area is powerless, nor does it mean no one is without power outside the “boundaries” – are Brandon SW on the north, SW 106th on the south, 21st SW in the west, 10th SW in the east. In comments here, and via the WSB Facebook page, we’re also hearing that part of West Marginal Way South – which is part of South Park – is affected too.

2:18 PM UPDATE: Thanks for all the updates. Some in Highland Park report their power’s back on. Haven’t heard from other areas yet.

4:21 PM UPDATE: No formal followup info from SCL yet but more people have reported getting their power back. The “system status” map is back too and indicates one lingering trouble spot, in Puget Ridge.

(Screengrab from City Light map, when outage affected 187 customers)
10:45 AM: Thanks to Stu for letting us know about this outage; there was a “wires down” call in the 1900 block of Bonair in Upper Alki around 9 am, and now, an outage too. The City Light map says 187 homes are without power as of about half an hour ago, and they’re not sure yet when it’ll be restored.

11:44 AM UPDATE: Stu says his power is back, and the City Light map confirms the outage is down to 7 residences.

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

After two community meetings in the past five days, residents of Sunrise Heights and Westwood know exactly which planting strips the county is eyeing for potential “bioswales” to keep rainwater from causing combined sewer overflows (CSO) at Barton Pump Station, miles downhill – specific spots along the 31 blocks identified in early March.

They also know how the county hopes to keep them from “ponding” during all but the heaviest rains – through a complex underground “underdrain” system.

But some remain skeptical that the “green stormwater infrastructure” project will not be Ballard Roadside Raingardens, The Sequel, though the project manager insists it won’t.

The ghost of that problem-plagueed city project has long loomed over this county plan, despite reassurances, promises, and explanations of how the two situations differ. There were more of those Wednesday night at the first gathering inside Westside School (the second meeting was Saturday at High Point Community Center), even as project manager Mary Wohleb tried to keep Ballard from being the proverbial elephant in the room.

Early on, Wohleb said: “I want to talk straight on about Ballard – it was fast-tracked, less than 4 months from study to construction. We’ve been studying this for almost a year, (and have a) clear understanding of soils, technology, how to take the water into underdrains and move it on down, way deep, far away from people’s homes so we can control the bioswale overflow … Having said all that, I understand this is a change, and that’s scary, and you’ve heard some nasty things …”

Chief among those “nasty” things – at least in context, for residents – would be residents having heard that the soil right beneath their homes is drainage-challenged “hardpan” – just like Ballard. Right beneath it, though, engineers say, is a different type of soil, “Vashon Advance Outwash,” and that’s what the county plans to drain this soil into. “We’ve been taking time to understand this neighborhood,” said consultant Steve Burke from SVR Design Company.

“We are going to be moving it down and away,” is how Wohleb put it.

In the absolute heaviest of rainstorms, there could still be “ponding” from one to 12 inches of water, which the county says would clear out within 24 hours. Residents remain worried about the possibility children could fall in and drown, since it is often warned that a small child needs only an inch or two of water to drown, and many of these streets are on the way to, or near, facilities such as E.C. Hughes Playground or Westside School.

“High Point has never had a person fall into its bioretention swales,” Wohleb noted. A High Point photo was shown as part of the presentation:

And about the concerns that someday money might run out and King County would suddenly abandon maintenance of the “bioswales”? “This is a facility,” she declared. “We are responsible for maintaining our facilities. We’re starting to put together a maintenance plan.”

She was joined at the meetings by consultants, primarily from SVR Design, which worked on the High Point project.

This all comes more than two years after the county’s Wastewater Treatment Division initiated the state-mandated process of figuring out how to cut down on the CSOs from pump stations including Barton; in December 2010, it announced that the “green stormwater infrastructure” plan was its choice for the “basin” feeding Barton, while for the basin feeding Murray Pump Station at Lowman Beach, it would instead put in a huge new underground storage tank (for which it has purchased and will demolish a block full of residential properties across from the city-owned beach park). This is the first time the county has tried this kind of project, and that too has caused trepidation among residents.

This round of meetings came at the end of the “preliminary design” phase; the county expects to start construction next year. The meetings were formatted with a presentation up front – here’s the complete PowerPoint that was shown (large PDF) – and then small-group breakouts, neighborhood by neighborhood, so that the targeted locations could be discussed with people who live on those blocks.

During the presentation, one Wednesday attendee requested the chance to ask a question in front of the whole group, but was told “this isn’t really the forum for that.” Attendees were directed to the small groups. The county says the questions it collected will be posted online, though.

Questions we heard on Wednesday night included “how will the pipes (underdrain) not clog?” (Answer: Crews will have access to cleanouts.) “How were streets chosen (or excluded)?” Arterials were left out because of “permitting and restrictions on traffic flow,” for example, while a few streets got a pass because they “have a separate storm system.” A wide planting strip was considered ideal – that’s what we saw, for example, last Monday night, when meeting with concerned neighbors in the 7900 block of 30th SW:

One concern in that conversation: What about the trees? The briefers promised that “preservation of large existing trees is a priority,” as well as that they would “protect large trees on private property adjacent to the right-of-way.” But “small or unhealthy trees in the right-of-way may be removed or replaced.” The 30th SW neighbors had noted a recent visit by workers measuring to see if tree trunks were at least six inches wide; it was explained in the small-group discussion, that’s a city standard. One more tree note: Some of the underdrain boring would go UNDER the trees and their root zones – at least five feet down, says the project team.

The curb cuts for private driveways – the section that goes over the sidewalk – would be dug up while the underdrain is being installed, though project-team members say that wouldn’t take more than a day or two at each site. And then there are the potential curb bulbs (also marked on the very dense schematic at the end of this large PDF), which would jut out five feet into the existing street.

More uneasiness seemed to center on the “steppable zone” between bioswale “cells.” It was described as about six feet wide, with landscaping you could “step” on, “pretty easy to cross,” according to Jennifer Lathrop from SVR.

“(The rendering) shows a car blocking the ‘steppable zone’,” one resident pointed out.

Jennifer acknowledged that could happen.

The “cells” would have a failsafe, in case of that mega-storm – which could send the water back out into the street and into a drain that would connect to the combined-sewer system, if there was just no place left for the water to go.

The small group we observed on Wednesday night included the block along 30th where we met neighbors two nights earlier. In twos and threes, they stepped forward to the rendering on the wall depicting their specific block, to find out where the bioswales might be placed, and why those specific planting strips were chosen. “It’s custom,” explained SVR’s Peg Staeheli. “The detail changes on every block.”

WHAT’S NEXT: The project team is moving into “final design.” In early summer, they plan to come out to the neighborhoods, block by block, to meet with residents about specific locations, while continuing to evaluate the locations revealed at the meetings. Later in the summer, a workshop to look at the plants proposed for bioswales – then “continuing to work on final design with you.” In the meantime, they promised to continue adding information to the project website (which starts here). And here’s the timeline shown as a graphic in the public-meeting presentation:

(Photos courtesy Seattle Public Utilities)
By Keri DeTore
Reporting for West Seattle Blog

March 2nd was the last day of a 30-year career for a West Seattle woman who has been called a “trailblazer” and a “pioneer.” In the beginning, though, the names she was called weren’t so complimentary.

Kerry Copeland has just retired from Seattle Public Utilities, where she was one of the first female water-line workers hired in the 1980s.

Being a water-line worker is being “on the front line.” It’s hard work, with lots of digging, often in difficult weather conditions. When SPU started recruiting women, Copeland was interested because she’s always been very physical and attracted to non-traditional jobs. “One of our tests was digging a 2×2 trench within a certain amount of time. We went to the West Seattle Reservoir to do it, and the place looked like a graveyard because so many groups of people had been digging trenches!”

Copeland passed the test and became one of the first women on the “front line.”

Using battle terminology isn’t entirely off base: Every day was a challenge, and according to Copeland, there were men who regularly said, “We don’t want women here and we’re not going to make it easy for you.”

Because information was regularly shared in the men’s locker room, or the “bull pen,” it was difficult for the women to get information about assignments and work changes. Copeland says, “It was like walking into a man cave.”

Copeland recalls a question she was asked in her first interview, which would be mind-boggling to anyone today: “If a man who doesn’t like women in the workforce is approaching you with a crowbar, what do you do?” Copeland says she didn’t answer this question immediately, not sure it was for real.

So what kept her going? “I knew I could do the job. I would do my best and trusted that there were good people. I had to be able to handle pressing through injustice — it was the right thing to do. I wasn’t going to go away and you take a lot of hits doing that. You have to be able to be uncomfortable physically and emotionally and push through. You have to figure out how to make changes, it’s a lot of responsibility.”

Copeland and the seven other women also joined together for support and information sharing. The women’s locker room became “a safe refuge. It’s how we would survive, vent, bond.” This female support and camaraderie was absolutely necessary in the environment at the time, “You’re setting the tone and breaking rules. Nothing you do is wanted or respected and you had to push back. Being on the front end, we had ourselves, and we’d band together when something needed to change.”

What Copeland began to notice after time was a “balancing” of the work force, and relationship building through commonalities, which she says “women are very good at.” She adds, “we were humanizing the work force. We’d have pancake breakfasts and community picnics. They began to accept the ‘femaleness’ once there was the human element.”

While attitudes at SPU began to change – and Copeland points out that she had a very supportive boss who told her to “show ‘em how it’s done” – that wasn’t always the case when she went to a construction site or project meeting. “I’d be the only woman, and they asked me to be the note-taker. So I did — and then I took the notes with me!” Copeland was also part of a two-woman truck team (unprecedented at that time), and when she and her partner would arrive at a job, they were asked, “When is the person in charge getting here?”

Copeland eventually moved from the front lines into training and was part of SPU’s first leadership and diversity committees.

She’s proud of being a “go-to” person, and having people know that if something unjust was brought to her attention, something would be done about it. She says, “What I did was important and it changed things … I feel good about being used as a reference point.” She also points out that, “My success was due to the folks above me who saw that I could be a change agent. We’ve done some good things.”

While Copeland feels the industry as a whole has made great strides in incorporating and training women as part of the overall work force, she has a concern.

Fewer women are coming into the trades these days, and she’s concerned the “energy level” may shift back to a more negative environment for women.

Though she’s now retired, Copeland still focuses on empowerment for women, teaching martial arts and focusing on personal safety. Looking back, she says that her work experience “was a gift. At the end of the day I knew I was working hard, being sharp and analytical.” In her biography she writes: “I’ve enjoyed these 30 years of cultivating meaningful relationships with remarkable and inspiring co-workers from many walks of life. It has been a richly rewarding experience.”

(Click for larger view)
Landscape design for the county’s Murray Basin sewer-overflow-control project, across from Lowman Beach Park, is at the “30 percent” stage – and the current draft will be reviewed Tuesday night by the community Design Advisory Group. Their meeting at 6:30 pm Tuesday at Fauntleroy Church also is scheduled to review community feedback on the “refined preliminary facility design concepts” for the facility itself. The full agenda and related documents are linked from this page. The project is centered on a million-gallon underground tank to keep stormwater and sewage from spilling into Puget Sound when the pump station across the street gets overwhelmed; it will be built on land across the park that is now the site of residential properties the county is buying.

(Photo added 2:24 pm – Spokane/Chelan light, apparently the west edge of the outage)
FIRST REPORT, 1:37 PM: WSB’ers are telling us of a power outage stretching from Georgetown to SODO – but the City Light system-status map isn’t showing anything yet. We’re going to see what we can find out via other methods. Just got a note mentioning Harbor Island’s out, too.

1:43 PM UPDATE: Just talked to Scott Thomsen at Seattle City Light. Their “outage management system” is not letting people in for updates and that’s why the map hasn’t updated – but they apparently have TWO separate feeders out, totalling more than 6,300 customers (homes/businesses). No idea yet what caused it, but crews are being dispatched, Scott says.

1:51 PM UPDATE: WSB’ers are mentioning other areas in comments too, such as Beacon Hill. SDOT points out via Twitter that the signals in SODO are out along major streets such as 1st and 4th.

1:54 PM UPDATE: City Light just tweeted that 28,000 homes/businesses are affected:

2:03 PM UPDATE: The City Light map is working now. Screengrab in a minute. It verifies Harbor Island is affected (we have a crew headed that way, too).

2:10 PM UPDATE: Our crew checking out Harbor Island says the intersection by Chelan Café is out, just west of the low bridge. Chelan Cafe itself has closed their restaurant, but the bar is still open. Meantime, if you have kids in schools in the outage zone – which does NOT include any of West Seattle, to our knowledge, beyond the Chelan Cafe area and Harbor Island – Seattle Public Schools has tweeted this:

Seattle City Light now says the problem is at the “South Substation” (3839 4th Ave. South, the big SCL facility right off the ramp from the eastbound West Seattle Bridge) and that some might not get their power back till 6 pm.

2:34 PM UPDATE: As many commenters are pointing out, the power’s come back on for most. Scott from City Light tells us about 600 homes/businesses are left to be restored. He says the problem happened when a power line that was being worked on at the South Station touched another piece of equipment and caused a short that led to the outage. Nobody was hurt.

3:01 PM UPDATE: And one last update from City Light via Twitter:

BREEZEWAY REPAIRS: The Junction’s south breezeway – between Puerto Vallarta and Northwest Art and Frame – is closed today (and possibly longer; we’re expecting an update later from Liz with the West Seattle Junction Association). A pipe problem has to be fixed. So if you’re parking in the 44th SW lot behind that area, you’ll either have to use a business’s back door, or walk around via Edmunds. (4:17 PM NOTE: The breezeway is expected to be closed for 4-5 days.)

SURVEY CREW: In case you wondered: The one that was working on the west side of California, around the SW Alaska intersection, says their work is on behalf of the new property owners on the southeast side of that intersection (Equity Residential, which, as first reported here in January, expects to start construction this year at the site they bought in December from Conner Homes).

Thanks to everyone who e-mailed with news that the power’s out for a stretch of the Admiral area. The City Light outage map says almost 300 homes are without power but should be back by late evening (the “estimated restoration time” is usually a very general estimate – could be earlier). The boundaries are shown as north of Admiral Way, between 47th SW and 53rd SW. No indication at this point of what caused the outage (no fires/lines-down incidents on the 911 log, etc.) – let us know if you’re seeing Seattle City Light crews (we’re out looking too).

6:22 PM UPDATE: Just saw a truck near 47th/Admiral – our crew is going to see if they can get close enough to find out anything about the outage.

6:34 PM UPDATE: Thanks to Karl de Jong, nearby resident and vice president of the Admiral Neighborhood Association, for sharing a photo of that crew. WSB co-publisher Patrick Sand talked to them very briefly before they moved on – they said they had fixed a “burned connector.” The SCL map still shows the power out, but one commenter says it came back on at 6:23, and we are seeing streetlights/porch lights on in the area.

Nearly 4300 single-family West Seattle residences – whose garbage, yard waste or recycling collection day is Monday, February 20 – will receive a recorded phone message on Thursday afternoon, February 16, reminding them that collections are on a normal schedule for the President’s Day holiday on Monday, February 20.

The automatic phone message is an opportunity for Seattle Public Utilities to use its outdialer system during a non-emergency event while still conveying valuable information to its customers. From information gathered from using the system, Seattle Public Utilities will be better prepared to convey critical information to members of the public during emergency events.

We think this is a first, but we’re checking.

ADDED 9:49 PM: SPU’s Ingrid Goodwin confirms to WSB that this is a test of sorts:

Yes, this will be the first time SPU is using its new outdialer system. At this point, we haven’t determined if it will be used for regular outreach messages, like holiday garbage pick-up, or if it will be used primarily for emergency communications. That’s something we’ll be evaluating from feedback we receive from our customers and other sources

It’s not on the online calendar, but we got word tonight from King County Wastewater Treatment Division that the Design Advisory Group for the Murray (Lowman Beach) combined-sewer-overflow (CSO) control facility will meet Monday night. The rendering you see above is one of the preliminary design sketches discussed when they met last month (we covered a subsequent briefing given to the Morgan Community Association). At this meeting, according to Doug Marsano from the county, “The group will be reviewing refined design concepts and discussing the public art process.” The main feature of the project is a million-gallon underground storage tank to be built across from Lowman Beach Park on what are currently residential properties that the county is in the process of buying. All are welcome to the advisory group meeting at 6:30 pm, Fauntleroy Church, 9140 California SW.

(Photos by WSB editor Tracy Record, added 8:34 am)
7:44 AM: Some residents in the Fauntlee Hills area woke up to water trouble this morning, according to several notes we have received. Greg reports, “Awoke to low water pressure and brown water coming from taps. Called city and they said there was a water emergency in the area and it would be at least 3 hours before water was restored.” Liz, who says she was given that same time frame, says her water service has been out since at least 3 am and that she was told the problem was a water-main break. We’re heading out to check.

8:26 AM: Just back from talking to the crew at the site of the break, which is on 39th SW just a bit north of SW Barton (which is wet for a few blocks downhill – luckily not quite cold enough to freeze). They have already fixed it and are flushing the lines. Just a cold-weather break, they told us, one of the 100-plus water-main breaks in the city every year (about 140, SPU reps told the recent meeting regarding Arbor Heights upgrades). This 12-inch main feeds homes for a 5-block area that zigzags around the spot where the pipe broke. Our photo shows the main and the silver clamp over the spot where it broke; the smaller green line on the right feeds the closest home, whose resident was out looking at the work and saying he’s glad it’s done because he’s overdue for his morning coffee.