According to King County, construction is in full swing on the roadside rain gardens being installed over the next two years in the Sunrise Heights/Westwood neighborhoods as part of the Barton CSO Control Project. I’m writing to give you a project update and share a few pieces of news.

The greatest neighborhood construction impact is being seen right now, and through the spring. The county offered an explanation:

1. Deep wells are being constructed on all 15 streets this year, at the same time as the rain gardens are going in on 8 streets.

2. Relocation of water and sewer lines has progressed more quickly than expected. That means that some streets are seeing construction start earlier than expected.

3. While well installation and utility relocation are happening on some streets, other streets have begun rain garden installation.

Well installation and utility work will be complete by summer, and the only summer work will be rain garden construction. This should impact two to three streets at the same time, instead of 8.

As the work proceeds updates can be found online at the Barton CSO Control project web page, http://www.kingcounty.gov/environment/wtd/Construction/Seattle/BartonCS… . A 24-hour project hotline during active construction through 2015 is offered at : 206-205-9184.

The county has had questions on the yellow well casings that are currently sticking up at the southern end of 10 of the streets that will have roadside rain gardens. Those well casings are in place until the crew has a chance to test the water flow. Once water flow has been tested and is sufficient for the rain gardens, these casings will be cut down with only a cap remaining. They are not permanent.

Finally, King County recently received word from Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) that the black and yellow striped object markers are no longer required in the future roadside rain gardens. SDOT’s review recognized that the roadside rain gardens are in a neighborhood setting on streets that are low volume, non-arterial, residential streets with on street parking.