Building roadside raingardens in West Seattle: Barton CSO project progress

| Environment | Utilities | West Seattle news

If you live in or travel through Sunrise Heights or Westwood, you probably know the “roadside raingarden” construction for the first phase of the Barton Basin Combined Sewer Overflow Control project continues to intensify. The King County Wastewater Treatment Division is building “green stormwater infrastructure” in eight blocks this year, seven blocks next year – 91 roadside raingardens in all. En route to a meeting last night, we noticed the activity on one block, 34th SW north of Holden (map), so went back today for a closer look (above). The county is now publishing weekly updates on its website – including what’s happening in which blocks:

For any residents who didn’t get block-by-block informational flyers, those also are available online. This project is part of state-mandated work to reduce combined-sewer overflows into Puget Sound; in this area, it’s called Barton because the wastewater ends up at the Barton Pump Station north of the Fauntleroy ferry dock.

P.S. The county is scheduled to present an update on its other in-progress Combined Sewer Overflow Control project, the Murray-basin-serving storage tank across from Lowman Beach, at tonight’s Morgan Community Association meeting (7 pm, The Kenney [WSB sponsor], lower-level meeting rooms, 7125 Fauntleroy Way SW).

Rational Thought April 16, 2014 (12:25 pm)

Thanks for posting this but the PR images of what it will look like when done notably do not include the yellow painted poles that are sticking up all over these projects and which you can see in your photos taken today. Those poles look to me like they are permanent as they are in the ground in concrete. What does the city and county have to say about those poles? Are they going to remain also? And if so, why aren’t they telling people about that aspect of this build?

JoB April 16, 2014 (1:20 pm)

ours goes in next year.. but they took the trees down this year so we are putting in a pop up container vegetable garden for the summer.

we will see how it goes.

K April 16, 2014 (1:26 pm)

Rational Thought,

They did, in the last construction phase, and information was circulated. These are some sort of monitoring well, if I remember correctly. We have one on our block, even though we are not getting a rain garden. The city informed us of this construction and related information during that time.

Rob April 16, 2014 (2:45 pm)

Yeah… we are broke.

WSB April 16, 2014 (2:52 pm)

The county doesn’t have a choice in this one. The state and federal governments mandated that the county and city reduce pollution into local waterways from combined-sewer overflows.

Orchard April 16, 2014 (3:16 pm)

Thank you for posting about this. I walk around this neighborhood and was wondering what was going on.

pupsarebest April 16, 2014 (5:01 pm)

The yellow poles remind me of people who buy a beautiful houseplant or other accent meant to enhance their home, then don’t remove the price/UPC tag.
Seems like these metal uprights could be painted grey, brown or green, or something more in keeping with a natural garden setting.

timh2o April 16, 2014 (6:51 pm)

The small yellow posts are just protection for the well casings(the larger yellow pipes). The well casings will be cut to grade after the bio swales are installed. The water from the street will go into the bio swale then it will go down the wells. The small ones will be removed after the swales are installed.

Nick April 17, 2014 (7:38 am)

Yup these are mandated as part of the county storm water permit. Hopefully once they get enough of these installed along with other measures you won’t see raw sewage flowing into puget sound during storms

Rational Thought April 17, 2014 (11:29 pm)

Thanks for the info. Timh20. That’s the answer I was looking for. I did read the materials originally and since and didn’t see that information anywhere. They aren’t in front of my house (thank God!) and it sounds like they are serving a good purpose but the yellow poles are awful and the construction is very disruptive to the area.

Sorry, comment time is over.