The in basket: Ron Hammond and Sandra Rocha are among the many who wonder how much longer Silverdale streets will be torn up for water main replacement.
Ron said in an e-mail, “Right now, Silverdale Way is one of the worst streets in the county with all the bumps and metal plates. Will they be repaving all of Silverdale Way?”
Sandra wrote, “When will Kitsap County finish the construction at Silverdale Way? It’s been more than a year (ago) that they started the repair in this road, and have never finished. Looks like that every week they are doing a new repair, and sometimes at the same place where they have done before.
“I work at the mall,” she said, “and we are really disappointed and tired with so many bumps in this road. Last Monday, 10/20, around 6 p.m., after 15 minutes with rain, the road was completely flooded at Silverdale Way and Myhre Road, and I could not see the bumps.
“Silverdale has the heaviest traffic in Kitsap,” she said, “and I cannot understand why the authorities do not re-pave all the road from Old Town Silverdale until Waaga Way.”
The out basket: It’s actually an extensive water main replacement project by Silverdale Water District. As I reported a couple of times in the spring, the trenched and repaired streets in Silverdale won’t be fully repaved, but will have to be restored to county standards when the work is done. A two-year bond will cover any deficiencies that arise after completion,
Morgan Johnson, general manager of the water district, says finish work with curbs, sidewalks, plantings, restoration of mailboxes and final paving of the patches will be done prior to Dec. 10, if the contractor can stay to its current schedule. But given the onset of bad weather, he said the district has given them a mandatory final date of Jan. 31.
He said the project is about two months behind schedule. Among the causes of delays were discovery of two old road beds beneath the existing one on Silverdale Way, which had to be cut through, discovery of leaking storm sewer lines the county came out to repair, and previously unlocated utilities , Morgan said.
The appearance of redoing some of the work resulted from having to close down work on Silverdale Way and shift to Anderson Hill Road and Bucklin Hill Road so the contractor could take advantage of the summer window when schools were closed and all the buses didn’t have to come and go on those roads
There will be more traffic disruption in the future. The water main placements will continue eastward up Bucklin Hill Road to about Albertsons from its present terminus at Blaine Avenue when the county builds the planned new bridge across the Clear Creek estuary. The water district expected that to happen this year, but the county delayed it a year.
A lot of the future work will be done at the same time as the bridge project closes Bucklin Hill Road for a year or so and so may not be distinguishable from that disruption. Morgan said the further water main work will be part of the county’s bridge contract, which also includes storm water mains.
In addition to replacing aging mains, the overall project includes installation of separate mains beneath the drinking water mains to carry reclaimed water from the Central Kitsap sewer treatment plant, when that water becomes available in a few years.
Skip Beahm of the water district said the new YMCA is plumbed to use the reclaimed water for toilets and irrigation, as is Harrison Hospital’s orthopedic wing. Morgan said he expects that to be part of future hospital construction as it moves to Silverdale from Bremerton, but that would be negotiated then.
