Updating Bellevue’s comprehensive plan | Utilities: Keeping the pipes and lines working

Sewer lines don’t last forever, and replacing or repairing them is a story that many homeowners know all too well. The city of Bellevue must repair and replace its sewer lines, too.

February 12, 2015 1:00 pm
Kim and Rebecca Pittenger stand near where they installed a replacement sewer line.
Kim and Rebecca Pittenger stand near where they installed a replacement sewer line.

Editor’s Note: The city of Bellevue is updating its comprehensive plan. Over the next four weeks, city officials will discuss different parts of the plan on this page. See box on this page for how to comment on the plan and attend an open house.

By Nav Otal

Special to the Reporter

For five years, Kim and Rebecca Pittenger delayed replacing a section of sewer line that ran from their home in the Lakes neighborhood to the street. It would have cost a lot of money at a time when three of their four children were attending college at once.

Instead, they paid a plumber a few hundred dollars a year to keep the line open using a high-pressure jetting machine. Once the financial burden of paying for university educations eased, the couple spent more than $12,000 to have the broken section of sewer line replaced.

The Pittengers, both doctors, have lived in their rustic log home, built in 1937, for 29 years and are no strangers to plumbing work. In 1992, they paid out about $4,000 to replace a different section of the same line.

Sewer lines don’t last forever, and replacing or repairing them is a story that many homeowners know all too well.

Like the Pittengers, the city of Bellevue must repair and replace its sewer lines. But instead of replacing 40 feet of pipe from a house to the street for $16,000, our Utilities Department maintains 680 miles of sewer pipe, serving about 37,000 customers. The department currently spends more than $4 million a year to repair sewer facilities.

Most sewer pipes are buried from three feet to 30 feet underground. Some are even buried under water near the shores of Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish. Accessing those pipes can be a real challenge for our crews.

Much of Bellevue’s piped system, which also includes drinking water and storm water, is more than 60 years old —well beyond its midlife — and some already are requiring replacement. Currently, we’re replacing or relining less than one mile of sewer pipe per year, but that length eventually will need to grow to six or seven miles a year. Our goal is to stay ahead of failures, which can damage property and the environment, inconvenience customers and increase cost.

Through an asset management program, we monitor and maintain pipes to get the maximum use from them before replacement. The importance of smart asset management is reflected in the city’s Comprehensive Plan. The Comp Plan, which is currently being updated, is the community’s vision for Bellevue’s future, establishing policy and guiding investments in infrastructure. It helps define the kind of city we want Bellevue to become.

Draft language in the Comp Plan Update notes the importance of “cost effective management of utility systems over their lifetime, including planning for renewal and replacement, balancing risk, and maintaining customer service.”

Kim Pittenger can relate to the balancing act. “I’m making budget decisions just like the city,” he said, “balancing the risk of not doing a repair against the cost of doing it with borrowed money.”

Nav Otal is director of utilities for the city of Bellevue. City staff contributed to this story.

Comment on Comp Plan

The city of Bellevue is updating its Comprehensive Plan, the community’s plan for shaping the future of the city. Your thoughts and suggestions are encouraged.

If you want to comment on the topic highlighted in today’s story, or any other section of the draft Comp Plan Update, here are ways to do it: