Construction rips up disc golf course

Portions of Washington?s disc golf course are being torn up in order to install a gravity sewer in Sunset Park. Parks supervisor Tim Widmer said he will not close the disc golf course this year but said that five of the nine holes would be affected by the construction. He expects the construction to be done soon enough to reseed the ground in the fall so that the whole course will be playable next year.

?There should be plenty of time to reseed the grass,? he said. ?We normally try to seed around Sept. 1. It would be best if people stayed off the dirt after it?s reseeded.?

Widmer said the parks department will post signs in the fall to let people know about the new grass, although he recognized that it will be a challenge to keep people off the grass.

The gravity sewer will enter Sunset Park from the eastern edge of Parkside Estates. That new section of line is known as the West Side Interceptor Sewer. It will go east on the low-lying area of the disc golf course until it reaches the rocket slide. Another leg of the line will go north from the rocket slide and through Main Street, where it will meet existing sewer lines. Washington city engineering technician Keith Henkel said the work in Sunset Park began last week and that it will continue for about eight to 12 weeks.

The park will remain open during the sewer line?s construction. The public is asked to be mindful of the construction, which will include trucks hauling in rock and hauling away dirt. Henkel said the sewer line will run in between the sand volleyball pit and the rocket slide and that neither one should be damaged.

Widmer said, ?It?s going to be tight through there because there will be obstacles on both sides.?

The gravity sewer will replace the existing Sunset Park pump station, which will be demolished once the new sewer plant is running. Henkel said the city is closing the pump station because a gravity sewer is less prone to fail.

?More maintenance is involved in a pump station than a gravity sewer line,? Henkel said. ?If a pump station fails, the sewer will back up at other places. With a gravity sewer, you still need to keep it clean, and the line could still break, but we have those same issues with the pump station.?

The West Side Interceptor Sewer will go west of the trailer court and cross Highway 1 before turning south and connecting to the new sewer plant under construction. Once completed, the gravity sewer will be 14,000 feet long, or just over 2.5 miles. DeLong Construction of Washington is building it for $2.8 million.