Columbia Mountain Times™: WSDOT/Eastern Region-October 2014 Update

-----Original Message-----

From: "Washington State Department of Transportation" <wsdot@service.govdelivery.com>
Sent: October 21, 2014 1:59 PM
To: guyperea@live.com
Subject: WSDOT/Eastern Region-October 2014 Update

Welcome to our October 2014 newsletter. This month we talk about preparation for the upcoming winter and a new way to treat storm water debris.

As always, if you have any questions on items in this newsletter, or other transportation issues, please let me know. Give me a call at (509) 324-6010 or drop me an e-mail at: metcalk@wsdot.wa.gov .

Keith Metcalf
Regional Administrator
WSDOT Eastern Region

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WSDOT crews readying for winter road duties

With winter just around the corner, crews from the Washington State Department of Transportation, Eastern Region, are getting prepared to handle snow and ice control duties. About 200 crew members working two shifts, seven days per week are assigned to the 1,600 miles of state highways in the seven northeastern counties in the state, including Washington's highest mountain pass - Sherman Pass at 5,575 feet above sea level. The Region snow and ice control cost is about $13.7 million for the two-year budget cycle.

Snow and ice control crews and equipment are based at 20 locations throughout the Region. The crews use nearly 100 truck-mounted snowplows, most of which include a system to spread sand or granular de-ice chemical. The Region also operates 14 liquid anti-ice chemical trucks. When the big snowfalls are combined with high winds, three highway snow blowers are put into service to clear drifts. During our winter shift schedule, which starts in mid to late November, maintenance teams are normally on duty from around 4:00 a.m. to midnight or later. The exact hours of each shift will vary slightly at different locations. If needed during a storm, shifts are extended to provide 24 hour coverage.

Ultimately, drivers are responsible to operate their vehicles in a safe manner during winter road conditions. Most winter collisions result from drivers traveling too fast for conditions or following too closely. This is especially important during the morning hours. It takes our crews about four hours to make the first pass over the full 1,600-mile network each day.

Our highway network is divided into sections and winter snow and ice control is based on treatment goals detailed in our snow and ice plan. Highways with higher traffic volume, such as Interstate 90, have more frequent treatments than low volume highways in rural areas.

Our crews make every effort to keep the highways open for travel, but weather is always unpredictable so drivers should be prepared for wintery driving conditions at all times.

We have some resources for winter driving on the Internet. Just follow this handy link: Winter Driving web page

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Tow plow is back

The Eastern Region conducted the WSDOT "tow plow" pilot in the winter of 2013/2014. The Tow Plow is a 26' foot plow towed at a 60 degree angle behind a tandem axle plow truck. One operator can plow the two lane widths that traditionally required two operators and two trucks.

Savings in equipment, labor and fuel are significant using this towed plow. In addition, the tow plow has no engine or transmission that require servicing so it is predicted that the maintenance effort for this equipment will be significantly lower cost over its lifecycle. Look for it operating on I-90 in or near Spokane this coming winter season.

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Joint WSDOT and City of Spokane Valley Decant Facility

WSDOT and The City of Spokane Valley collaborated on the financing, design, permitting, and construction of the recently finished Spokane Valley Regional Storm Water Decant Facility. Storm drains are generally cleaned and maintained through the use of an eductor truck which vacuums sediment and debris from catch basins and other storm structures. An eductor truck is commonly referred to as a "Vactor truck" after a popular brand name. The act of discharging and separating the liquid and solid contents of an eductor truck is known as decanting.

The decant facility is configured to allow decanting to occur in a single dump, without prior dewatering of the load; and to enable year round decanting and dewatering operations. It is located at the Pines Road/Interstate 90 Interchange, on property owned by WSDOT and currently used as a Maintenance Facility for WSDOT Maintenance crews. WSDOT contributed use of the property and a "match" for the Department of Ecology grant that was applied for and obtained by the City of Spokane Valley.

The collaboration between WSDOT and the City of Spokane Valley resulted in a facility with many innovative features. Most notably the facility will allow continual shared use with multiple dump bays and efficiency in operations by providing a rapid eductor truck dump capability (5 minutes) versus the slow discharge to separate liquid from solid material (45 minutes) that is currently required to decant the eductor trucks. This will result in quick turnaround times keeping the eductor in operation on the roadway, eliminating long "empty" lane closures, cleaning drainage features and minimizing roadway lane shutdown durations. Shorter shutdowns reduce employee exposure to traffic, reduce delay to the traveling public, allow more storm water structures to be cleaned per day, and optimize life and efficiency of structures as they can be maintained more frequently.

The efficiencies realized by the collaboration between WSDOT and the City of Spokane Valley are also seen in the placement of the Decant Facility at a central location in the City of Spokane Valley and directly off I-90 near the majority of the storm water structures in the Eastern Region NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) area.

Benefits to the environment are realized through the tremendous improvement in treatment of liquid decant and the reuse of solids. The Spokane County Rathdrum Prairie Sole Source aquifer underlays the majority of the most heavily urbanized portions of Spokane County. Keeping the structures clean and operational will assist in keeping the aquifer and its interconnected surface waters cleaner.

WSDOT developed a decant testing protocol with the Department of Ecology, to characterize the pollutants in the decant, and to determine the efficacy of the system in removing pollutants. This resulted in a Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPP) to ensure sampling is completed in a safe and reliable manner. The QAPP included pollutants of concern to the local treatment works, as well as Ecology. We will collect samples at two points in the treatment process, post settling and post media filter. This information will be shared with Ecology and will help us amend and maintain efficiency of our treatment structures. From our research this is the only storm water decant facility in the state sampling liquid decant prior to, and post treatment.