More work will soon be done to repair the Briscoe Desimone levee along the Green River in Kent and Tukwila.
The Kent City Council recently awarded a $1.8 million contract to Tapani Inc., of Battle Ground, to fix section one of the levee between South 180th Street and South 200th Street.
Tapani had the lowest of 10 bids submitted in December to the city. Tapani received the bid last year for $6.2 million to repair the first phase of the levee that stretches for 2.7 miles.
“We are very pleased with the bids,” City Public Works Director Tim LaPorte said to the council at its Jan. 20 meeting.
A city engineer’s estimate had put the cost at $2.6 million for the latest contract. The total cost for all of the repairs is expected to be about $18 million.
The King County Flood Control District is paying for the repairs through a property tax of 10 cents per $1,000 assessed valuation. The state awarded the district a grant of $7 million to help pay for the levee that protects portions of Kent, Tukwila and Renton from flooding. The flood district board hired an outside consultant in 2013 and eventually agreed to go with the city’s plan to repair the levee rather than a much-more expensive county staff plan that included purchasing large amounts of property around the river.
Crews will install sheet piles about 30 to 40 feet into the ground to build a flood wall. About six feet of the wall will sit above ground. The upcoming work will be in the city of Tukwila, whose borders start just north of South 200th Street along the river.
Levee certification studies in 2010 indicated four areas of the levee required improvements to meet federal levee safety requirements, according to city staff.
The projects also include the city submitting applications to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to certify the levee so properties are removed from the Kent Valley floodplains and property owners are no longer required to buy flood insurance.
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