Key project will assist in restoring big piece of Brier’s infrastructure
OLYMPIA – The state’s updated capital budget currently moving, slowly but at least slightly surely, toward the governor’s desk “would go a long way in helping repair a significant piece of the infrastructure in the growing community of Brier,” according to state Rep. Derek Stanford.
Stanford has worked to secure $800,000 in a supplemental capital-budget item to assist in paying the bill for building a new Scriber Creek Pedestrian Bridge. This supplemental capital budgetis nearing approval in the full House of Representatives.
The Scriber Creek Pedestrian Bridge was damaged in the December 2007 flood, Stanford explained.
“Those devastating flood waters a few years back eroded the creek bank,” he said. “In fact, the bank actually took such a battering that two of the four pilings supporting the bridge were exposed.”
Nicole Gaudette, City Planner with the City of Brier, said that “rebuilding the Scriber Creek Bridge will protect salmon-bearing waters, critical infrastructure, a pedestrian pathway, and the public health. The state’s partnership in funding this Scriber Creek Bridge project is crucial to its success.
“Our City of Brier looks forward to being able to repair damages that the 2007 winter floods caused to the Scriber Creek Bridge and the surrounding area,” Gaudette added, “because this work will ensure stability to the sewer line that the bridge carries preventing future damage to Scriber Creek and its ecosystem.”
Stanford noted that the state’s capital budget “is primarily funded by the sale of bonds, and doesn’t do anything to add to the serious shortfall currently confronting our state’s biennial operating budget.”
The Scriber Creek Pedestrian Bridge not only provides a major trail link in Brier, it also carries a sewer pipe over Scriber Creek, which as Gaudette noted is a salmon-bearing waterway.
As an emergency measure after the flood, a rock wall was installed to protect the exposed pilings and prevent the bridge from falling.
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife officials have declared that the rock wall can serve only as an emergency provision, which means that it must be removed fairly soon to prevent further damage to fish habitat. So when the rock wall is taken out, the bridge and sewer pipe are once again vulnerable if there’s another flood. And if that happens, the sewage dumped in Scriber Creek would pollute the water, the waters downstream and, eventually, Lake Washington.
In that case, salmon and salmonid would be killed, the water quality would be destroyed, and the public would be exposed to the pathogens and bacteria in raw sewage.
The proposed bridge replacement project includes removing the rock wall, building new bridge abutments outside of the floodplain, replacing the aging bridge deck and sewer pipe, and restoring the stream bed.
Stanford said the top principles in the capital budget, which is also known as the construction budget, emphasize public-school improvements, among other construction work. The budget will help leverage federal, local and private funding, and it also helps preserve and maintain state facilities.