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About Sandy post. (Sandy, Oregon) 1938-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 20, 1981)
V o i. 71 The Sandy Post No. 34 ___ SANDY OREGON THURSDAY AUGUST 20 1981 Welches school faces problems »tLSPS 4BI 180» Sewage plant capacity not as close as feared PROPOSE 3 BOUNDARY FOR THE C IT Y Of WELCHES with flooring bv I)AN DII.I.DN The Sandy sewage treatment plan, is no, within one year of reaching capaci ty, as an earlier engineering study reported, it some steps can be taken to give it the ‘‘fle x ib ility " its operator needs to keep it going "The operator doesn't have the means to make things happen," Duane Lee of Lee Engineering. Inc of Oregon City told the Sandy City Council Mon day evening Given those means, he estimated, it w ill be three years tiefore the system reaches capacity That news prompted relief from city officials "The city appears to have no immediate crisis concerning sewage treatment capacity, if we are able to make the improvements Lee Engineer ing is recommending," City Manager Roger Jordan told the council Those recommendations include pur chase of a used tanker sludge truck, in stalling new piping to carry treated material directly to the chlorine con tact basin, reinforcing a partition bet ween the aeration tank and the aeration digester, and modifying the headworks to bypass peak flows to the pond Estimated cos, of the recommended improvements would be approximately $60,000, according to Lee "That's cer tainly a heck of a lot better than the million, million and a half dollars you'd be spending for a new plant," he said The earlier study, conducted by- Sprague Burdin of Cunningham and Associates of Milwaukie, suggested that the sewage treatment plan, could service approximately 1,000 more customers before expansion of the plan, would be necessary He recommended the best methtxl of expanding the plan, would be to use a package plan, addi tion, which is the type of plant the city currently has Package plants, according to Ix*e, "fa il to have very good fle xib ility" bv M id i \E I. p. J ()\E S Post Correspondent Since construction begun on the new Welches School annex, it has been plagued with a variety of problems amid charges that improper excavation and faulty workmanship caus«xl the building to settle unevenly and quickly As a result, the floors buckled and cracks appeared Last week another problem surfaced with the construction which could possibly delay the move into the building by a couple of weeks, accor ding to Superintendent Ken Blackburn School officials had planned to occupy the building by Sept. 8 Blackburn said the material, Vetonit Pallano, used to level the uneven floors cause by the rapid settling did not bond properly in some places to the concrete floors underneath, causing cracks Fred Carlson of Estacada, the district's clerk of the works who makes sure the taxpayers get their money’s worth and reports new problems to the superintendent, said that when the cracks were discovered, the tiles could not be laid because water could get underneath and cause greater pro blems for the school later on Construction superintendent Lloyd Piper of Glenbrook Construction of Salem said he could not explain what caused the floors to crack He said his workers applied the Pallano the same way in every area of the building and that cracks appeared in some areas after it dried Although he can't be sure, Piper felt that the unusually hot weather could be a fac tor, making the floors shrink too quick ly He said a representative of the pro duct's distribution firm in Canada made an inspection of the floors to determine if the cracks were caused by faulty workmanship or a bad mixture of the self leveling compound. Piper said he doesn’t think the crack ed floors are the result of the foundation settling, but can't "overlook that possibility at all ’’ Earlier this year, in an attempt to solve some of the new building's pro blems. architect Richard Gessford of Gessford and Associates, the building's designer, recommended the use of Pallano to correct the uneven floors'. Superintendent Blackburn said that Gessford told the school board last Thursday that the problems in the new school's main office, multi-purpose room and hallways in C wing ‘‘was an error in the bonding process " He said the technician from Canada agreed and did not feel it was a problem with the product Although Gessford felt there would be only a four day delay in the project's completion. Piper said it would be a loss of at leas, two weeks before the new building will be ready for occupa Single Copy 2 0 ’ l ì g i MO • •• A R IA PROPOSE N O I P R tS E U IL SEWER D I S Ì R Ì Developer studies Welches cityhood tional facilities, services, streets and utilities could lx* generated After incorporation, a long, ar duous process, the plan proposes a five-member council, with a weak m ayo r form of g overnm ent, enlisting a city manager The proposed c ity has an estimated population of 1.415 people with 556 residential units According to Bright s report, the true cash value of property within the proposed city is approximately $54 7 million That would raise ap posa Is That prtK-ess will include projtetmg the total sewage flow for the city in the year 2000 and determining which com ponents of the trunk lint* and sewage treatment plant require expansion to meet that demand. dt*termimng d th«“ preliminary recommendations are sul ficent to achieve plant capacity and refining the $60.000 estimate for these improvements, and working with theci ty to analyze problems which result from the plant's design and the varying flow conditions under w hich it operat«*s In other action, the city council: — Accept«*«, the $5.244 hid of .Inn Turin and Son of Sandy to couiplct«* work on the Meinig Avenue walkway It will eventually run from Barker Court all the way to Highway 2«. Part of that work, however, will be completed by stale Highway Department crews as par, of an agreement reached by City Engineer John l.ichtenheld. — Decided to tackle vacant l«ds overgrown with weeds in subdivisions throughout the city. Jordan told the council that he sen , le tters to developers of four subdivisions, asking them to clean their vacant lots of debris and high we«*ds. Tw«> developers com plied. Now the city will give the others 10 days before it cleans them itself and places a lien on the property for the cos, of the clean-up. — Accepted the public improvements in the Tickle Creek subdivision, at the recommendation of l.ichtenheld. County leaders vote themselves a pay raise WELCHES AREA H O O D LA N D SERVICE D ISTR IC T Clackamas County. Oregon There is a plan afloat to incor porate the new city of Welches Written by Carl Bright, developer of Rippling River, the plan calls for a self governing body which it says would give residents a “greater con trol over local affairs and their destiny," and says 24 hour police protection would be available to ,h«“ citizens of the area and financial revenue's that would enable the city to satisfy its needs for better recrea which an operator needs With the ad justments his firm is recommending, he said, the operator would have th«“ means to make things happen Because this was jus, the first ph.is«“ o, L«*e Engineering's study, the council agreed to spend not more than $8. imhi to allow the firm to "fine tooth'' its pro proximately $246,143 in property taxes, based on Sandy's current m ill rate. The proponents, however, are no, recommending that any property tax be impostd upon the property owners within the boundary " It is believed that this decision should be made by the people within the city and such recommendation should originate from their elected council members if it is- their desire,” the report says In the wake of the dispute over pay for Portland city commissioners, Clackamas County commissioners have approved a raise for themselves that gives them an IB 4 percent pay in crease, county officials say Portland officials have been con sidering an IB 5 percent raise that was highly criticized because the hike is more than twice the percentage in crease given to other city employees. In Clackamas County, the commis sioners approved an 8 6B percent pay raise in July County Fiscal Analyst Carole Berggren said las, week, however, that th«* actual raise is much higher The raise is figured on the base com missioners’ base salary, including a 9 percent increase that commissioners approv«d for all county officials in 1980, she said Clackamas commissioners d«*cid«*d later no, to accept the extra money in an attempt to prevent a county general fund deficit The three commissioners are the highest-paid county board members in the state They received $36,575 in 1980, bu, were supposed to get $39.860 W ith the latest increase each commissioner would earn $43,320, officials said Commissioner Stan Skoko condemn ed the raise, saying it was approx ed while he was absent Commissioner Rolx*rt Schumacher said Skoko was told of the size of the in crease, adding he believes the board should have taken the responsibility of explaining the true size of the icrease tion Blackburn stressed that the extra costs associated with these recent levelling-compound problems will not t>e the responsibility of the district's taxpayers Rather, he said, the contrac tor will absorb the loss Blackburn said he has no idea at this time what ,h<* extra costs will be to tear up the floors and re apply the leveling compound dam bv M IC H A E L P. JONES Post Correspondent The second half of the Water Policy Review Board hearing on the propostxl Earlier this year, the school district small-scale hydroelectric project on hirtnl Portland attorney John Osborn to Boulder Creek was held Aug 12 at represent them in a possible arbitration Welches Grade School against the architectural firm and It was the last opportunity for Scappoose excavator. Havlik Construc testimony on the issue before the board tion Those firms are being held respon d e c id e s w h e th e r to g r a n t th e sible for the earlier floor problems prelim inary application to allow the which will cos, the taxpayers an developer to study the stream and the estimated $30»,< nm , to correct project’s feasibility further Robert L. Beschta. a forest hydrology and water quality expert from the school of forestry at Oregon State University in Corvallis, was the sole witness at the hearing. Bestchta said that one of his m ajor concerns is that the plant's construction will make it strong enough to withstand SECTIO N 1 the tons of logs, limbs, sand and sup Keeping Posted 2 plemental m aterials such as silt and Inside Business 3 clay, which will make its way down the Senior Center News 4 watershed to the dam Obituaries 5 He said his research has shown that Editorials, le tte rs 6 200 tons of debris is prtxluced in a Sports, Recreation . 7-8 square mile in a watershed like Boulder Creek's. SECTION II Beschta estimated that 1,400 tons of Area News 1 debris would be produced in seven IRxxlland Happenings ... 2 square miles of the creek's watershed Around the County 2 during the high run-off times, which About People ... 3 would be when the plant would operate Classified Advertising 9-12 "One log can have a tremendous a f fect on the whole system,” Beschta SECTION I I I said "A hydro plant constructed in Special Back to School Sup- such an area had better be able to p le m e n t In s id e Tab withstand the large quantities of debris Television Directory Inside Tab and had better be anchored in to the bedrock ” Index Beschta said tha, he is also concerned about the effects of the organic debris on the screening of the plant’s intake facility He said that when the stream is rising, someone must be available seven days a week, 24 hours a day. to check on the facility Beschta said tha, there is more than the normal amount of debris coming through the stream due to the recent logging operations in the area, Beschta told the project’s developer, Steven Sweitzer of Wemme, that the stream s channel "could alter through tim e ” Beschta said, "When you pu, a per m anent s tru c tu re into m oving streambed, you can have problems. No, over a year or two, bu, over a 30-year period ” The hydrologist is concerned about the p ro je ct’s economic feasibility because he feels the plan, would no, produce the amount of power the developerexpects, • Betschta siad he feels the developer is being ‘‘overly optimistic” with his projected plant output because extreme events, such as a drought, could alter the plant's production Sweitzer said his plant could add 2 3 million killowatt hours to the area's energy needs, bu, Betscha contended that his own calculations show the potential power to be 37 percent less Betscha added tha, a ve ir or two of low runnoffs ‘ could pose financial d if ficulties.” The hydrologist admitted, however, tha, because of the eleareu, in the bet ter part of the area that there could be increased streamflows 5’-. 5* Photo r nrxn by oy M ■Micnaei ichael p r Jones Jone The trade offs would be. depending on how they do the job. that there would be more organics in the stream ." Betscha said "Only good engineering and maintenance could offset the possi ble problems ” John Thompson, representing the developer at the hearing, told the Water Policy Board, One thing that always gets lost is the tradeoffs involved If this is the best fish resource in the • t m ," he said, " It ’a news to the residents ” Thompson said that some of the witnesses testified to the importance of the stream in regards to the fish, but add that others testified the area was "also clearcut and raped ” "You can't have it both w ays," he said, since the effects of the erosion on the streams from the clearcut would have a m ajor adverse effect on them by destroying their spawning grounds and habitats Thompson concluded that he found it "unfortunate that it has to take so much tim e and that someone has to go through so much to study his own pro perty and stream ” The Water Policy Review Board will make its decision on the project's preliminary application by late Oc tober
