Council Approves Infrastructure Funding

WAITSBURG – At a Sept. 6 special session Waitsburg’s city council gave City Manager Randy Hinchliffe the go-ahead to seek a $750,000 loan through Community Bank to be used for infrastructure repairs and updates. At their Sept. 20 meeting, the request was modified, directing Hinchliffe to seek a line of credit rather than a loan.

The catalyst for the request is the need to re-line a leaking sewer siphon near the Touchet River Bridge. City Manager Randy Hinchliffe explained to the council that all the sewage from the east end of Waitsburg comes to the east side of the bridge and flows into a siphon, a terra cotta line lying just under the riverbed, before coming back up to the park on the west side of the river.

Hinchliffe said that there was a “severe infiltration of water” through the pipe during high waters last winter.

“I can’t say that it won’t hold up, but I can’t say that it will. I just know how much water was in that manhole this spring. It’s got a severe leak somewhere,” Hinchliffe said.

The most cost-effective option for replacing the line is to perform a pipe burst, which is estimated to cost $50,000, as opposed to hundreds of thousands of dollars to do in-stream work which would require permitting and could take from a year to 18 months to complete.

In a pipe burst, an expander head, attached to larger pipe, is inserted into the existing pipe. As the new pipe is pulled through the existing pipe, the old pipe breaks away and the new line takes its place. The six-inch terra cotta line would be replaced with an 8-inch high-density, one-inch thick sewer line, Hichliffe said. The procedure doesn’t require permits and could be completed in three to four days.

Hinchliffe said the city’s biggest concern is that the thrust from the burst could cause the new pipe to break free from the line, shoot up into the air, and dump sewage into the river. In that case, replacing the line takes on an emergency status and permitting requirements are waived. However, the cost jumps back into the hundreds of thousands, he said.

Hinchliffe said there is no money in the city’s budget for the pipe burst, and that it would be best to borrow enough money to cover the cost of emergency repairs if they became necessary. Hinchliffe reminded the council that the rate structure to borrow funds was put in place in February when the council approved a 5-percent water and sewer rate increase this year, 5-percent next year, and 2.5 -percent in perpetuity, specifically for the purpose of leveraging funds to obtain a loan infrastructure repairs.

The council agreed to seek a line of credit with Community Bank in the amount of $750,000. Currently, they are only committing funds to complete the pipe bursting project, which is expected to be $50,000. The additional funds would be available in the case of an emergency situation.

If the line of credit is approved and the pipe bursting is completed successfully, the council may consider using additional funds for water meter replacements or other infrastructure priorities, in the future.