King County approves funding plan to remove Green River sandbags

The giant sandbags along the Green River in Kent, Auburn and Tukwila soon will be going, going, gone.

Well, actually, it could be mid-summer before work starts in Kent to remove the bags from along the Green River Trail.

The King County Flood Control District’s Board of Supervisors approved Monday a $5.8 million plan to remove 26 miles of sandbags lining the river in the three cities.

The flood control district will pay approximately $4.4 million and the cities about $1.4 million under the plan, with the county funding 75 percent of the project.

But the levees are too wet to handle the heavy equipment needed to get rid of the bags that weigh more than a ton.

“The next move for us is to determine when the ground is dry enough to get the heavy equipment on the levees so the sandbags can be removed safely,” Kent Mayor Suzette Cooke said in a phone interview Tuesday. “We should be able to start in mid-summer. There’s a lot of moisture in the levees. They are not stable enough.”

Cooke said city staff found two city-owned properties to dump the sand that cut the costs of the sandbag removal in Kent from about $3 million to $1.6 million.

The city will hire a contractor to dump the sand at the Naden property, a 10-acre site in the valley between Willis Street and Meeker Street, just east of Highway 167. Sand also could be dumped at sites at the city’s Riverbend Golf Complex along West Meeker Street.

“The public needs to know that the sand has no value to sell,” Cooke said. “It’s not the quality that has a retail value to it. It’s not something you want in a sandbox. And it’s really grimy sand from sitting there so long.”

Cooke expects the city in the next couple of weeks to put out a request for bids by contractors to remove the sandbags. She did not know how long it would take a contractor to remove the sandbags once work begins.

Many of the bags cover more than half of the path of the Green River Trail, a popular walking and bicycling destination prior to the placing of the sandbags.

Sandbags that are about 3-feet high have lined the trail for nearly three years for extra flood protection because of damage in 2009 to an abutment next to the Howard Hanson Dam on the upper Green River. But the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced last fall it can operate Hanson Dam at full capacity, which means the sandbags are no longer needed.

“The sandbags were a necessary evil to provide extra protection to the Green River Valley cities during the increased threat of flooding,” said County Councilwoman Julia Patterson in a county media release. “By removing the barriers, users can once again enjoy full access to the trail.”

Flood control district projects planned to improve levees along the river are being delayed to pay for the removal of the sandbags.

The flood district board is composed of the nine members of the King County Council. It is a special-purpose government that funds and oversees flood protection projects and programs.

The board is funded through a county-wide property levy of 10 cents per $1,000 assessed value or about $40 per year on a $400,000 home. That brings in about $36 million a year for projects.

Each jurisdiction in the county also receives a small portion of the flood district property levy to pay for any flood control projects within each city. Kent, Auburn and Tukwila can now use that money to help pay for sandbag removal rather than other projects for the next six years.

With funding approved, Green River Valley cities plan to move quickly to begin work on removing the sandbags. The sandbags are filled with sand, dirt or gravel and each weighs approximately two tons. The sand will need to be removed, and may be reused, according to county officials.

Barriers that hold the sand and are in usable condition will be cleaned, properly folded for reuse and returned to the Corps, which loaned the barriers to the cities. The metal of any damaged barriers will be recycled and the linings disposed of.

Crews also are expected to have to make repairs along the Green River Trail because of damage from the sandbags sitting on it for three years.

The King County Flood Control District Advisory Committee, a 15-member body composed of mayors and council members from eight cities, recommended the flood district board pay for 75 percent of the removal cost with the cities of Kent, Auburn and Tukwila paying 25 percent over a six-year period.

King County paid for the installation of the sandbags in the fall of 2009 through the flood control district by delaying planned projects. Kent received $2.59 million from the county to place nearly 17,000 sandbags along 12 miles of levees to heighten the levees and help protect the city from flooding in case the then-damaged Hanson Dam could not hold back enough water.

No heavy rainstorms struck since the January 2009 storm that damaged an abutment next to the dam, so the bags were never tested.

For more information about the county flood control district, go to www.kingcountyfloodcontrol.org.