Update: Seattle Public Utilities has now (mid-morning) issued a press release:
SPU Director Ray Hoffman said the utility has been working collaboratively with the reservoirs’ designer, Denver-based MWH, to recover the costs of the retrofits. The rigorous seismic analysis was set in motion in March 2011 after MWH notified SPU of possible seismic deficiencies in their work.
“MWH has been working with us, voluntarily paying costs incurred and cooperating every step of the way — and we expect that to continue,” said Hoffman. “When the dust settles on these projects, we believe we will still be at or below the original budget, and that utility rates will be unaffected by the retrofits.”
Hoffman emphasized that without the retrofits — even in a monster quake — the reservoirs are in no danger of catastrophic failure, and they pose no risk to public safety. And he said SPU will work to minimize disruption of activities in the city parks that have been built atop the reservoirs.
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Inside the Maple Leaf reservoir before it was filled. Photo courtesy Dane Doerflinger Photography
The city and its contractors now believe that the four underground reservoirs that serve Seattle, including the one under Maple Leaf Reservoir Park, might fail in a catastrophic earthquake.
Our news partner The Seattle Times has the story here. Our earlier piece, saying Seattle Public Utilities was looking into the problem, is here.
From today’s Times story:
In September, the city will begin the estimated $7.6 million process of retrofitting the West Seattle Reservoir, based on a series of high-tech simulations that found the 30 million-gallon water vault could suffer leaks substantial enough to empty it in days to weeks.
It’s likely the city’s three other underground reservoirs — Maple Leaf, Beacon Hill and Myrtle — will require similar retrofitting, and the price to strengthen all four could range from $25 million to $30 million, said Andy Ryan, spokesman for Seattle Public Utilities.
The utility began investigating the seismic deficiencies in March 2011, after the engineering company that designed the reservoirs, MWH, disclosed it had made an error in evaluating whether the structures would meet code using industry-standard calculations, which are based on aboveground reservoirs instead of underground ones, Ryan said.
One engineer: “It wouldn’t be a catastrophic immediate rush of water, but you’d start to lose water. You wouldn’t have any water left after a short period of time.”
Thomas, I am with you.Each election be it local or national, it seems that the best candidate is the lesser of the evils. There just never seems to be a leader with ideas of his, or her own. They are always those of the party. And, lets face it; both of the major political parties have let us down.But, it appears that the only way to send any kind of message is to make the incumbents a one term politician by voting them out if they do poorly. What else is there. I don`t want the job, do you?
Question for the experts: Why was the Maple Leaf reservoir mandated to be covered but not the Roosevelt reservoir?
MLL: The Roosevelt reservoir is being decommissioned. It’s still up in the air (in my knowledge) whether it will become a park or be sold for other use.
Rob, you’re well informed as usual. But the bottom line is this – Seattle Public Utilities approved this design, it was constructed, and now it needs $30 million in repairs shortly after construction. There’s a 0% chance that the contractor will pay for the repairs because SPU definitely approved the faulty design.
Let’s vote out some incumbents, OK?
Oh. I missed that implication, sorry!
Dear Donna, you are correct. It was city ordinance 120899. I was implying that it wasn`t put up for a public vote. It was mandated by the state, and carried out by the city, if you care to investigate. Also, now there is some concern that fertilizer could seep through the covering from the grass above it and enter the drinking water. Great!
Dear “K” just a few items that SPU did to ensure water quality of the open reservoirs; reservoir cleaning, outlet disinfection,surface water control, water quality monitoring,weekly microbial analysis,fecal total Coliform testing, HPC tests, psuedomonas testing, chemistry (bi-weekly), T&O analysis,algae testing (bi-weekly). It is a good thing that you no longer are associated with this program you clearly don`t know anything.Also, I am friends with the director of SPU. If you want to know anything, I`ll ask him for you.
Dear “K”, You are one of the problems. Not the solution. Some of you folks that have advanced degrees believe that they can do no wrong, throw statistics at everyone then, when it becomes a cluster-fuck, run and hide.
Rob, I am sorry but you are wrong about the water being treated after being held in the open reservoir. The majority of Seattle’s water is treated either at the Tolt or Cedar river facilities, then transported and held in the various reservoirs until delivered to our taps. The water contains a sodium hypochlorite residual that prevents bacteria and algae from growing in it. However, this is the only form of treatment that occurs after the water leaves the main treatment facilities. So in fact covering the reservoirs was a very good idea, as I for one don’t enjoy goose leavings in my water.
I anticipate you will simply dismiss what I am saying as nonsense, so to substantiate my credentials for you, I am an environmental engineer trained in drinking water treatment, and I also volunteered with SPU’s drinking water citizen advisory committe where we continually talked and shared stakeholder views about many topics, including this retrofits seismic design flaws.
For many of the committe members, Cost minimization was always a priority of ours when making advisements to SPU. However, these reservoir coverings were federally mandated, so SPU did not have a choice about putting them in regardless of the price tag. But when weighed objectively, there are many positives for having them covered including: keeping ducks, geese, atmospheric deposition, etc out of them; protection against intentional contamination; evaporation losses; seismic upgrades the old reservoirs did not have; reclamation of City land for usable area..and the list goes on. These are expensive projects, but by and large well worth the cost when all the pros and cons are weighed.
My advice is this; don’t assume you know everything just because you have an opinion. Research your facts, then make statements to others. Otherwise, you just spread around garbage that becomes “truth” to those less informed.
K
lesson the confusion and politics of decision making in the City and start saving rather than wasting money. Change to a city manager form of government like Bellevue so decisions are more professional and elected officials can focus on policy and big issues such as this. Our full time electeds at over $100k a year are simply too bogged down in detail and process.
As far as the open reservoir goes; that water was always processed to remove any unwanted chemicals, bird crap,floating dead bodies, etc…, Then it was sampled to ensure that it was drinkable. The cover was completely unnecessary, expensive, and an inappropriate use of tax dollars.I can think of many better uses for that money.
Could that chemical be Fluoride? It just messes up the taste of my bourbon and water.
I admit to transporting hard liquor from Oregon since prices are up, up, up. Four for the price of three, if I recall. It paid for the gas but not the time, I had other things to attend to anyway so it was all a bonus.
Would have brought some from California, except you can’t “carry on” bottles of hooch any more, and paying for checked baggage really defeats the purpose. Prices down there can be as low as 1/3 of here.
I guess I could just start smokin’ some rope, if only the WSLCB could move as fast as Colorado has.
Am traveling to Breckenridge soon, will report back if society there has fallen apart due to legalization, and if the nugs are primo.
Maple Leaf Bob, Why not just state what chemical it was, and provide a verifiable source for the information. Otherwise all you are doing is rumor-mongering.
Then there is the partially complete tunnel downtown. Our newest skate board opportunity. Yeah, I made a joke. Can we just lighten up.? Personal jabs are uncalled for.
The open top reservoir had issues as well. The sludge that was dug out of the bottom tested high in a certain chemical that shall remain unnamed. All that dirt had to be trucked to a special soil remediation location that raised the construction costs on the project. Fun stuff!!
The only vote on the covering of the reservoir was by the City Councilmembers. It was not an issue on the ballot.
Maybe the liberals didn’t vote for the new alcohol rules either. I know I certainly didn’t because I could see that it would raise prices, eliminate good paying jobs and reduce the selection.
I don’t remember getting to vote on the reservoirs but that is a no brainer. I really don’t want birds crapping in my drinking water.
Maybe the liberals aren’t alcoholics.
Also, just want to say that I voted against the covered reservoir. And while we are at it; I voted against dissolution of the state liquor stores. And in case you haven`t noticed; all the stores now charge 2 sales taxes. Alcohol has sky rocketed. I am simply pointing out that many of you liberals have gotten it wrong, along with this new debacle. Thanks for screwing us.
Thomas; Mr. Miller does not in any way represent me. There may be several of my neighbors that have for some reason unknown to me, given over their power to Mr. Miller. But, I am not one of them. Last I recall, we have “elected” council people that represent us. Not some “Lord of the Flies-type arrangement.”
Its great to be able to trust all those folks in power. In fact, there are several people on this blog citing this reference, or that one, that are clearly clueless.This is simply one more example where we find that people are not as smart, or as skillful,as they themselves would have us believe that they are.
See #1 above – David Miller, the President of the Maple Leaf Community Council, thinks this $30 million mistake is funny? My neighbors – why is this man representing us?
“It wouldn’t be a catastrophic immediate rush of water, but you’d start to lose water. You wouldn’t have any water left after a short period of time.”
As a homeowner adjacent to this latest fiasco in Seattle, that sounds pretty freaking catastrophic to me.
The engineers aren’t dumb. I would bet a lot of money they raised concerns and the powers that be ignored it because of budget issues.
If it does fail, the city won’t take the heat. They will blame the contractors and engineers.
Dear everybody who lives downhill from the reservoir – buy some scuba gear. Isn’t it amazing the City didn’t figure this out before they spent all this money? No. No it is not amazing.
First the serious comment:
Any insight whether the contractor’s insurance has to pay for this?
Next the semi-serious comment:
Maths are hard.
The other hard truth is that if Seattle were to experience a truly “catastrophic” earthquake, i.e., one that occurs every 2500 years, as referenced in the Times article, we would have a whole host of other very serious problems in addition to leaking reservoirs. Leaking reservoirs are certainly bad, but the resulting complete disruption of the transportation system, including virtually every bridge in the city, would have far more immediate and serious impact. Food, gas and water distribution would be immediately impacted, and most people, particularly in the more dense areas of the city, do NOT have a week’s worth of food and water stored on hand; in some cases because they have no good place to store it.
So, yes, leaking reservoirs are a bad thing, but the real issue is the rest of the devastation and impact that would result from a once-every-2500-years earthquake.