RCAA ON-LINE LIBRARY
Other Elements
Issues in Brief: Official planning approvals & the initial go-ahead from the Port Commission for the runway project came when the engineering work was at a very early stage. The public still has not seen detailed engineering documents for the embankment (especially the four walls), though this engineering may have been done as part of the plans & specifications for construction work in Years 2004/5.
Environmental features are very vague. To manage streamflow, the Port came up with the idea of capturing run-off & storing it in huge underground vaults for later slow release (emulating the function of ground water & wetlands). The public has not seen any plans for these elements – estimated to cost $150 million or more. (They are not included in the Year 2004/5 contract now awaiting bids).
The Port is under obligation to change the way it handles partly-treated effluent from the Industrial Wastewater System, involving a pipeline to a sewage treatment plant at Renton, but the public has yet to see any description of that work.
The Port is under mandate from the Pollution Control Hearings Board to provide more replacement (artificial) wetlands, to make up for the nearly 20 acres to be lost to the embankment. The plans for that work have not yet been seen.
The Port included some vague conceptual drawings of the high–tech rammed earth walls but no engineering. These will be the highest such walls ever built, and there remains controversy that they can be built.
Part of the problem is that so much of the environmental engineering was hurriedly thrown together in the course of Port efforts to seek the approval of the Department of Ecology and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, & the planning documents have never been released for public review or discussion.
Cost estimates for elements with little engineering are suspect.Documents:
Home | What's the Latest? | Links | Library | Newsletter | About Us
