City waives sewer requirement for Tollgate Park

Published 1:42 pm Thursday, January 14, 2016

North Bend’s new Tollgate Park, open since last spring, has been given a “temporary reprieve” from the costs of hauling and treating wastewater.

In a unanimous vote by the North Bend City Council Jan. 5, the city’s requirement that all new construction be connected to city sewer was waived for the popular park.

The waiver, called a “temporary reprieve from the cost of processing,” by Si View Parks Director Travis Stombaugh, will allow the park to install a septic drainfield for the disposal of wastewater, and decommission the septic vault on site.

The vault is only short-term storage for wastewater; it must be vacuumed out and its contents hauled away as needed, in a process that was costing the park district “several thousand dollars per week,” according to a presentation by Public Works Director Mark Rigos.

Rigos also noted in his presentation that parts of North Bend still do not have sewer connections, so, “what we’re proposing today, we don’t take lightly.”

The nearest city sewer main to the park is two thirds of a mile away, he said, and connecting to it would cost the park district hundreds of thousands of dollars. Alternately, the septic drainfield would be a one-time cost of about $20,000.

Stombaugh also spoke to the city council, assuring them that as soon as the sewer mains were extended as far as the park facilities, Tollgate Park would connect to the system.

The code change waiving the required sewer connection will apply, at the discretion of the city’s public works director, to public facilities of 10 acres or larger.