Fire, ice, breakdowns, delays: just another day for public works

BRIDGEPORT – Keeping the lights on, the water running, the sewage processing, the grass mowed, the streets plowed of snow, and the myriad other duties for even a small community like Bridgeport is a tall order for a public works director in the best of times. When the worst of times occur as they did during November and December last year, the thin line standing between the public and disaster is manned by a small staff of experienced and dedicated workers who put in the extra hours to prevent public discomfort and disruption.

Bridgeport’s Public Works Superintendent, Stuart Dezellem, delivered first-person accounts of the worst of times to city council members at their November 2022 and January 2023 monthly meetings as he recited example after example of what his department found, fixed, or made-do over the past three months.

Part of it began when the 2020 Pearl Hill wildfire destroyed the city’s wastewater treatment lab - among other structures - forcing plant operator Martin Landin to work out of a temporary trailer and process sample testing at Brewster’s lab, among other challenges, for the past two years. While the city built a new facility scheduled to become operational any day now, the Covid Pandemic played havoc with finding, securing, and shipping vital components needed to support a construction schedule. Equipment unavailability and delivery delays pushed back the expected occupancy of the lab by more than a month between November and January alone.

Despite that obstacle and improvising with equipment cobbled together on the fly, Dezellem announced last November that the city was awarded the state Department of Ecology 2022 wastewater excellence award.

Praising Landin’s dedication under such difficult circumstances, Dezellem said, “The community doesn’t really realize what goes on in those situations.”

When Dezellem inspected the interior concrete wall of the city’s new reservoir last fall he found rock pockets called “bird holes” in the concrete caused by insufficient vibration of the poured wet concrete allowing air pockets to form.

“They are deep enough that I believe they need to be repaired long term,” Dezellem told the November council.

The repair process had to be postponed until next spring when warmer temperatures will not freeze the grout filling and cause later breakage. That pushes back the date when the new reservoir will be operational.

“With the tank properly repaired we can deliver a quality project to the City of Bridgeport,” Dezellem said. 

When the freezing snowstorm blew through early last November the city’s public works shouldered the fallout from repeated power outages and voltage surges.

“We lost the electric motor winding on Well 1,” said Dezellem, adding that he had taken the well offline a month earlier. “And we lost the starter contact on Well 2."

Gray’s Electric came to the rescue with a motor but the repair bill cost the city $20,000, and the electrical problems were not over. Another frozen wire blew the disconnect in the box holding the water level indicator in the reservoir.

Dezellem plans to install phase controllers on city wells 1 and 2 to monitor the three-phase power serving both.

Water coming off the top of the city’s working reservoir froze on the access ladder and also froze the mechanical float so public works could not tell how much water was in the reservoir.

“In my 15 years doing this job I have never experienced that before,” Dezellem said of the freezing runoff.

At the January council meeting Dezellem reported:

•  One of the treatment plant’s two clarifiers – a settling tank used to remove suspended solids from the water - was down all winter.

• The 70’s-era front-end loader blew a head gasket.

• The 1985 diesel two-way dump truck used for street sanding broke down.

• Well 1 (one of the city’s three) is pumping air.

Whenever possible Dezellem and crew make their own repairs to save money - as they did with the clarifier - when a Midwest consultant wanted $10,000 to send a technician out for a two-hour repair. It’s now back online.

Options to repair the front-end loader are under consideration.

“We don’t use it enough to justify spending $40,000 to $50,000 on a new one,” Dezellem said.

The old truck’s two-way dump may not be repairable, but it can still haul sand and plow snow. As another option Dezellem suggests converting the bed to serve as a 5,000-gallon water tender for the fire department.

Air in Well 1 water is unacceptable to deliver to city users, said Dezellem. The 80-foot well located at 10th and Jefferson is hydraulically connected to the Columbia River. Dezellem believes the air may be the result of the river’s water level that has been down all winter from its normal level of 781 feet. Douglas PUD, that can operate within a 10-foot variance between 771-781 feet, advised the city to be prepared for a decrease in river level.

Douglas PUD told Dezellem they are operating the reservoir at 778 feet but Dezellem’s measurement of the well’s static level found it to be more than two feet below where it should be at 29 feet, 3 inches.

“At this point I don’t have an answer for the solution,” said Dezellem. “I think if we get the reservoir level back to 781 we’ll be O.K.”

It’s a new year for public works. Snow melt is just around the corner and so is the potential for another problem on Raymond Avenue with excess runoff from higher elevations south of the city. There is still three feet of saturated snow on the top of Dyer Hill waiting for warmer weather.

So it goes.