The Seattle Times had an interesting story a few days ago about the trouble brewing hundreds of feet under our fair city: Brightwater tunnel likely causing homes’ troubles

Neighbors of Brightwater have complained of construction noises late into the night, cracked floors and foundations, a sinkhole that swallowed a driveway, pollution of a creek, homes flooded with sewage and wells gone dry.

Most of the complaints have been filed by people who live along the tunnel route. The tunnel runs under Northeast 195th Street and other roads, and directly beneath 147 private properties, officials said.

Here are some of the things neighbors have endured:

• Marlene and Eldon Berg’s previously quiet Kenmore neighborhood became a noisy construction site, with truck engines revving, backup beepers sounding and metal banging on metal when contractors began digging a tunnel portal. Windows in their home rattled and floors shook when a boring machine chewed its way out of the portal. After the Bergs’ well ran dry, the county hooked them up to the city water system.
• Ray Ames was asleep when his wife, Mary, woke him up and showed him a brownish liquid flooding the kitchen and pouring out of the toilet. Raw sewage had backed up into the house because of pump problems on a Kenmore sewer line that was being redirected to the Brightwater plant. Two years later the county paid more than $70,000 for repairs and legal fees.
• Pauline Chihara stepped out of her Kenmore home early one morning and discovered her driveway had fallen into a 30-foot-wide, 15-foot-deep sinkhole.

Yikes!

Here’s a map of where the Brightwater tunnel passes through underneath Kenmore:

View the full system map at the project page on King County’s website.

Sounds like it’s a good idea to keep your eyes peeled for potential problems (cracked foundations and driveways, plumbing issues, etc.) if you live anywhere along the NE 195th St. route.

If a giant sinkhole swallows your house, call 9-1-1 from the neighbor’s place after you barely escape with your life. If you have other, less pressing problems thanks to Brightwater, call the County’s construction information line at 206-205-5989.

The notice alleges that Waterfront Construction “has violated and continues to violate the CWA (see Sections 301, 307, and 402, of the CWA, 33 USC §§ 1311, 1317, and 1342) and its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit.

The list of offenses Waste Action Project are alleging are as follows:

• discharges of bilge water
• discharges of welding waste
• illicit and/or unauthorized discharges
• failure to monitor stormwater discharges
• failure to adopt a stormwater pollution prevention plan

Over on YouTube, user crazyhazedaze has been posting videos of some of these activities since late last year.

Waterfront Construction has 60 days from September 10th to respond to the action before they will face a citizen lawsuit.

Water pollution has been an ongoing issue around the Puget Sound. According to a recent Seattle PostGlobe story, Washington State has plenty of violators of the Clean Water Act:

Even though 195 out of the Evergreen State’s 435 regulated facilities violated the Clean Water Act between 2004 and 2007, few got in trouble for it, according to exhaustive data posted at NYTimes.com. For every 100 violations in the state, there were only 8.6 enforcement actions.

And those are just the ones that were caught.

Clearly there is still plenty of work to do to ensure the cleanliness of our natural resources. We will continue to follow this developing story for you.

The Northshore Fire Department has a website with some information on the new project, including renderings and site plans for the new location.

Link via KBIN, photo by the Kenmore Crow.

The original road closure notices that were mailed out stated that the road would be closed “throughout the summer until school reopens in the fall,” which is just two days from now on September 2nd. This date was also posted on the orange construction road closure signs.

However, the orange construction signs have now been updated with a new date: September 30. The Snohomish County Public Works website is even less optimistic, putting the completion at October 30 (although the page for this specific project states that the road will re-open “approximately the first week in October”).

So for all of you that are really excited to drive on the new and improved Lockwood Road, you’re going to have to delay that gratification just a bit.

It is also worth noting that in 2011 Snohomish County plans to “improve” the intersection of Lockwood Road Carter Road by turning the existing four-way stop into a full-fledged roundabout. Clearly this is some strange usage of the word “improve” with which I’m not familiar.

That’s quite a few different public organizations that all have to coordinate and work together to make everything work out as planned, and there has been some (justifiable) doubt as to whether everything will indeed come together in the end.

Here’s an update on the latest status of the Post Office’s part of this scheme, courtesy of KBIN:

The City and The USPS are now negotiating the fine print and details of an initial five year lease/rental agreement for space, 1985 sq. ft., in the current City Hall.

The agreement also acknowledges that at some point the Post Office could move into a space to be developed and owned by Urban Partners. The proposed lease terms, initiated by the Post Office, while still in review form, is now back in the hands of the Facility Division of the USPS Western States Office in Denver. The initial five year terms are potentially followed by five year increments up to 2041. We are anticipating final agreement by the end of October, if not sooner.

The main thing I’d personally like to see out of a new Kenmore Post Office would be the addition of an Automated Postal Center, so we can actually mail packages any time of day rather than only during business hours.

I pass through this intersection quite a bit—from both 73rd and 181st, and I have never found myself thinking “golly, I really wish there were a traffic signal here.”

On a similar subject, has anyone else noticed how smoothly traffic seems to flow at the other end of the block through 68th and 181st now that it’s just a 4-way stop? Once they get the second southbound lane on 68th opened up between 181st and Bothell Way, that intersection should be completed. Of course, we all know they’re going to put a traffic signal back in there anyway.

But hey, a crow can dream, right?