Crews are expected to start work in mid-August on a $2.65 million project along the Green River to improve the Boeing Levee and provide better flood protection to the Kent Valley.
The Kent City Council awarded the levee work contract July 17 to Aberdeen-based Quigg Brothers, Inc. A state grant will cover $2 million of the cost. The city will pay for the rest through its storm water drainage utility fee fund or with funds from the King County Flood Control District.
“When we do this work we will get a portion of the valley removed from the floodplain by FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency),” said Toby Hallock, city project engineer for the work. “It’s a small section but one of the segments that will count among all of the segments to remove the majority of the valley.”
The Boeing Levee, named after the company’s nearby plant, stretches for about one mile from South 200th Street to South 212th Street. This is the first of five levee projects the city plans along 12 miles of the river in an effort to improve flood protection as well as receive levee certification from FEMA. Levee certification would keep flood insurance rates lower, remove some flood insurance requirements for property owners as well as allow for more development.
When completed, the project will help protect residences and businesses from 100-year flood events.
City officials will close the Three Friends Fishing Hole Park and parking lot during construction. Crews will use the park as a staging area for equipment.
Hallock said work could be completed in a couple of months or it could take through the winter depending if the contractor has any trouble tracking down steel sheets for a 600-foot long flood wall that along with an earthen berm will act as a secondary levee for the existing levee. A steel shortage has delayed some construction projects.
Construction of a flood wall makes the Boeing Levee project different from other recent levee work along the river.
Because the city received state grants to help construct the park five years ago, the state Recreation and Conservation Office played a role in what type of levee improvements could be made in order to restore the park.
“We could not put a berm through the middle of the park,” Hallock said. “So we will put a (5-foot high) wall on the backside of the property.”
Crews also will tear up the parking lot at the park for the project, but the parking lot will be replaced.
“We will restore the parking lot and park once the levee work is complete,” Hallock said. “The park will be back as it was except it will have a fancy wall in back.”
Engineering consultants hired by the city determined the existing levee has a steep bank that would not meet FEMA requirements. But the secondary levee set back at least 150 feet from the river would meet standards set by FEMA so the city can get the levee accredited by the agency.
“The sheet-pile wall will help keep water from seeping through,” Hallock said.
The small park, just south of South 200th Street, includes a wheelchair accessible sidewalk from the Green River Trail to a fishing platform along the bank. Other park amenities include a covered shelter, restrooms, picnic tables, a small open space area and parking.
Crews will close the restrooms during levee construction, but portable toilets will be provided for trail users as the trail will remain open during the work.
Another contractor recently removed giant sandbags from the trail near the Boeing Levee so construction could start. All of the sandbags along the river in Kent are expected to be removed by this fall as the extra protection is no longer needed after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers repaired a damaged embankment next to the Howard Hanson Dam.
The city named the park after three men killed in a 2002 plane crash on an Alaskan fishing expedition organized by the Kent Parks Department through the Kent Senior Activity Center.
Boeing donated the park land valued at $1.8 million in 2000 to the city. A state grant of $300,000 through the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program, helped fund the $610,000 park project.
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