Pipes and paving conflict may be avoided

An Electric City 10-inch waterline project to Sunbanks Lake Resort, which had been scheduled to begin Monday, has been delayed until after July 4 weekend.

City Clerk Jackie Perman said the contractor on the job said if his crew wasn’t set up to go on Monday he would delay the project. The job calls for a nearly 1,900-foot long trench for a 10-inch pipeline to provide city water to the resort.

The 10-inch line to be installed alongside the pavement of SR 155 will be capped for any eventual service to new construction across the causeway. Sunbanks will run a 6-inch line from its entrance into the park.

Officials were fearful that if they didn’t get started Monday they would end up with a huge traffic problem during the July 4 weekend.

There were additional highway problems that developed this week.

A Department of Transportation chip seal crew had been advancing about five miles a day from Coulee City to Electric City, but were pulled off the SR 155 job to go to Pullman to do an emergency road project there, according to DOT officials. The chip seal project will probably be stalled until July 7. The DOT crew was somewhere near the Million Dollar Mile area when it pulled up to go to Pullman.

DOT officials were unaware that a pipeline project would be going on at the same time as when they were projected to go through Electric City.

The DOT project calls for the state to go through Electric City and on to Grand Coulee’s Midway Avenue, the stretch of highway through that city. Grand Coulee officials said it was their understanding that the Midway work would begin this week.

Asked if the Grand Coulee police department was aware that the Midway work was scheduled sometime this week, Chief Mel Hunt said it was the first time he had heard about it.

The DOT’s SR 155 project through Electric City could come at the same time contractors are digging a trench alongside the highway laying pipe toward the entrance to Sunbanks Resort. That project, a $300,000 job, is being paid for by the owners of Sunbanks Lake Resort.

DOT officials stated that they would call the water line contractor to see if they could coordinate the project so it doesn’t provide a traffic mess in Electric City.