ILWACO — City councilors last month gave their approval for Ilwaco to award a nearly $2 million bid for a wide-ranging project to fix and prevent untreated stormwater from running off into Baker Bay at the Port of Ilwaco.

The council’s unanimous decision at an Aug. 16 special meeting to authorize Mayor Mike Cassinelli to accept a $1.94 million bid for the Baker Bay stormwater project from Rognlin’s, an Aberdeen-based general contractor, marks a major milestone for a process that began four years ago.

Jointly proposed by the city, port and Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership (LCEP), the project will see removal of more than 30,000 square feet of paved surfaces at the port, which will be replaced with a mix of new landscaping and sidewalks, trees, curbs, gutters and other improvements aimed at treating and draining stormwater runoff more effectively.

Pull Quote

‘We’re way ahead of the game on this one, because the major cities are being forced to clean up their stormwater and there’s not a lot of grant money to do it.’

Mike Cassinelli, Ilwaco mayor

The project is being funded by a grant from the Washington State Department of Ecology, with the state agency contributing $1.85 million. The required 15% match from Ilwaco, about $325,000, is being funded by a Natural Resource Damage Assessment settlement the city received following an oil spill from a crab boat in 2014.

While eight contractors expressed interest in the project and attended a pre-bid meeting, Rognlin’s was ultimately the only company to formally submit a bid. Its bid, about $60,000 shy of $2 million, was above the $1.25 million to $1.75 million engineering estimate.

With Rognlin’s bid exceeding the amount of construction funding that Ecology’s grant provides for, Ilwaco and LCEP requested that the state agency both increase its grant funding and narrow the scope of the project. Ecology informed the city that it supported both of the requests.

“One thing I will say is we’re way ahead of the game on this one, because the major cities are being forced to clean up their stormwater and there’s not a lot of grant money to do it,” said Cassinelli. “Now it’s coming down to smaller cities, and pretty soon it could hit us … We’re really saving the city in the long run with this grant.”

Work on the project will get underway immediately in order to meet a Dec. 31 construction deadline. Ecology’s grant expires at the end of January 2025, although the city has requested that deadline be extended to June 30 of next year.

Project details

The aim of the project is to cut down on the discharge of stormwater pollution into Baker Bay. As it stands, untreated stormwater runs off directly into the bay.

The project came together in the aftermath of the December 2014 oil spill caused by the sinking of a crab boat that crashed into Jetty A just outside of the bay. The 78-foot fishing vessel went down with approximately 4,600 gallons of oil and fuel on board, and the crash and spill left a visible oil sheen on the Columbia River for three days.

The vessel, the F/V Titan, was never salvaged, and Ecology, the Coast Guard and the owner of the vessel’s salvage contractor jointly agreed to leave it in place. The owners of the vessel were fined $10,500 and ordered to reimburse the state $8,000 for its response to the incident, and Ilwaco later was awarded funds as part of a Natural Resource Damage Assessment settlement.

With work expected to begin later this month, the project involves removing and replacing about 32,000 square feet of paved surfaces from the port parking lot and parts of Howerton Way.

These surfaces will be replaced with approximately 9,000 square feet of new landscaped areas, 2,000 square feet of new sidewalk and 3,2000 square feet of bioretention facilities — also known as rain gardens, which are located along roads and in parking lots and use engineered soils and specific plants to trap and uptake pollutants in stormwater.

New curbs, gutters, valley gutters and asphalt pavement will be installed, along with 37 trees. A catch basin to collect, redirect and filter out debris and pollutants from surface water before entering a drainage system will also be added as part of the project.

The approved work also includes installation of four BioPods, a proprietary system that collects stormwater and filters it through a non-proprietary mulch. The stormwater then flows into the BioPod’s planter or the existing storm system.

The project initially called for six BioPods, but was reduced to four as a way to cut back on costs after Rognlin’s bid came in above the engineering estimate. About 500 square feet of permeable pavers — designed to allow stormwater runoff to filter through to a sand filtration layer that’s about 12 inches thick and then flow to an underground pipe that would be attached to the system — were also axed as part of the cutbacks.

Construction is currently expected to wrap up by January or February.