The Columbia Boulevard Wastewater Treatment Plant is constructing two new clarifiers as part of its Secondary Treatment Expansion Program. A $5.35 million construction permit was recently issued for the clarifiers.

The Secondary Treatment Expansion Program is the largest improvement project to the treatment plant at 5001 N. Columbia Boulevard in Portland since the 1970s, according to the City of Portland, the project owner. The improvements, designed by architect Jacobs Engineering Group and constructed by Kiewit Infrastructure, will increase the treatment plant’s resiliency, protect water quality and provide healthier work environments for workers.

“It is also linked to our ‘Big Pipes’ program in that it addresses how we treat all that combined sanitary and stormwater conveyed to the plant,” Project Manager Muriel Gueissaz-Teufel said.

The two main features of the project are the two new clarifiers that will increase the plant’s secondary treatment capacity and new solids processing facilities to replace old assets and increase capacity to the year 2045. The clarifiers will replace old composters and work buildings along the Columbia Slough.

Clarifiers are large tanks in which aerated wastewater slows down and solids from this process separate from the water.

“We have a regulatory mandate to add these clarifiers,” Gueissaz-Teufel said. “The treatment plant, when it rains hard, we have two basic processes: One is biological; the other one is chemical.”

The two clarifiers will increase the biological side of things. It will also improve resiliency of operations.

“This will add a lot of resiliencies from an operational standpoint but also from a seismic standpoint because they will be built to the structural code,” Gueissaz-Teufel said.

Construction began in November 2020 for the first phase of construction with site preparation, ground improvements and the installation of temporary facilities and systems to allow deconstruction of existing facilities and systems without service interruption. The ongoing work is approximately $100 million.

Since November 2020, the team finalized the design and engineering of the permanent facilities, Gueissaz-Teufel added.

“We’re going to council next week for that second phase,” Gueissaz-Teufel said. “That should be all complete by December 2025.”

The clarifiers will be complete by 2024 and the rest of the construction will be done by 2025. Other work includes cleaning and restoring the eight aeration basins, deconstructing aging work areas, renovating storage facilities, constructing a new multi-use building, replacing the solids facility and process, adding new pipes underground, and replacing old electrical equipment located in the tunnels with new equipment above ground.

Public Information Officer Diane Dulken said they will lock in a maximum price for the project at the council meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 24. The total project cost will be $515 million, including what has been spent so far.

The project team is also excited to be implementing a Community Benefits Agreement to address historic inequities in construction workforce and contracting, Gueissaz-Teufel said. The project will continue to provide millions of subcontracting work to people of color, women and disadvantaged businesses, while providing workforce training and development opportunities to women and people of color. Gueissaz-Teufel said this is the first project implementing that agreement. Approximately $80 million will go to minority certified firms for their work on the project, she said.

Even while deconstructing, the treatment plant has continued to be operational.

“This is really a plant that operates continuously that we all rely on to protect public health and the environment,” Dulken said.

The team has been recycling the dirt during excavation so it can be repurposed.

“We have worked with DEQ to see if there can be a beneficial use for the soil,” Gueissaz-Teufel said. “We reached out to local agencies to see if maybe there is a mutual agreement we can figure out.”

The Port of Portland has entered into an agreement with the project to take the soil to their own site.

“It diverts the landfill, it reduces carbon emissions, and it saves us at least $5 million,” Gueissaz-Teufel said. “It’s been a good partnership for us.”

The plant is a resource recovery facility that harvests the resources considered waste. A huge part of this is the water.

“We’re recovering water and putting it back into the river in a clean form,” Gueissaz-Teufel said.

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Multnomah County is applying for $447 million from a federal grant program to help pay for construction of the Earthquake Ready Burnside Bridge project.

The total cost of the project is $895 million. The intent of the project is to replace the existing bridge with one that can withstand a major earthquake.

Multnomah County is contributing $300 million through its vehicle registration fees and is seeking money to fill the additional $500 million-$600 million. The $447 million grant from the Federal Highway Administration‘s Bridge Investment Program would help cover that gap.

Megan Neill, project manager of the Earthquake Ready Burnside Bridge project, stated during a board of commissioners meeting Thursday that the grant is specifically geared toward bridges that are in poor or deteriorating condition. The grant would be used during the construction phase and be spent over the 2025-2030 fiscal years. Neill expects to hear by early next spring whether the project will receive the grant.

The project is currently in the environmental review phase. The goal of the review is to understand the impacts of all options and choose one to design and build. The review is required by the National Environmental Policy Act, a federal law enacted in 1970 to promote the enhancement of the environment, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The review will help the county make an informed decision about what to design and build. It will provide better understanding of the trade-offs and inform the decision of which alternative best meets the needs of the project, while balancing environmental effects.

After several years of studying a wide range of alternatives, project leaders are proposing to replace the existing bridge with a new movable bridge along the same alignment, but with four travel lanes instead of the five the bridge has now, according to information provided by Transportation Public Information Officer Sarah Hurwitz. The new bridge will be a bascule-style movable bridge, like the current bridge, but will have either a tied arch or cable stay structure type on the longer east approach span over the freeways.

A cost savings analysis added about a year to the environmental review phase, which pushed the start date of the design phase to later this year. The final design phase will begin in early 2023. The project team will make final decisions on aesthetics such as whether it will be a cable stay or tied arch on the bridge deck.

Depending on when funds are secured, construction could begin in 2025.

Later this year, a Final Environmental Impact Statement will be published and the county will seek a Record of Decision from the Federal Highway Administration approving the Preferred Alternative. The project will then move into the design phase, followed by construction.

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