Equipment set to roll on sewer project

Last updated 8/15/2000 at Noon

Bulldozers and backhoes should start moving dirt in Sisters on Monday, August 21, launching Sisters' long-awaited wastewater disposal project.

According to city administrator Barbara Warren, a contractor will start the work on the streets at the south side of Sisters.

Work was to have begun already on clearing land on the south edge of town for the city's treatment facility. The city finalized purchase of the land on Friday, August 11, paying $456,000 for a 160 acre parcel.

According to Warren, the city borrowed the funds for the purchase from reserves and the systems development charge fund. The borrowed money is to be replaced by bond money. The city council is to vote on resolutions authorizing the sale of the bonds on August 24 and the bonds are expected to close on September 1.

Sisters voters approved $7 million dollars in bonds for the project in 1997; the remainder of the approximately $13 million project is funded through grants.

There will likely be some disruption from the project, but no street closures are planned, according to Warren.

"We will see some impact, but they'll try to keep it to a minimum," she said.

Piping in the commercial area of town will run mostly down alleyways, Warren noted.

"The whole town isn't going to be torn up," Mayor Steve Wilson said, noting that crews will fill in trenches as they go.

Wilson projects an 18-24 month period before total completion of the project. However, he said, some areas could be hooked up by early next year.

"We anticipate being able to receive effluent out there (at the treatment facility) on a limited basis around the first of the year," Wilson said. "We want to get people on line as quickly as possible because we know some people who have been hanging on (with substandard septic systems) for a number of years."

The downtown commercial areas will likely be hooked up some time in the latter part of the summer of 2001.

Wilson said that crews will be working six days a week in long shifts to get the treatment ponds dug out and lined before the advent of cold weather.

The rest of the project should continue, barring heavy snows.

Entrenching and laying pipe can go through the bulk of the winter," Wilson said.

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Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.