Hermiston plans to pipe drainage ditch
By Terry Murry on Thursday, October 26th, 2023 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
HERMISTON – The city of Hermiston is contracting with Odyssey Contracting of Yacolt, Washington to lay pipe that will effectively bury the open drainage ditch between Theater Sports Park and Theater Lane. Assistant City Manager Mark Morgan says the pipe should be laid this spring and city workers will complete the project.
“The city, utilizing multiple departments – water, sewer, streets, and parks – will do the work of actually covering up the pipe to bring it up to grade,” he said.
Originally the Hermiston Irrigation District was going to lay the pipe, but Morgan said the district wasn’t able to do it.
“They got in there and started clearing and grubbing with their equipment last winter and subsequently got a piece of their equipment stuck in the canal and relatively quickly realized that pipe installation job was a bit bigger than they could handle,” he said.
Morgan said that once the in-water pipe installation is done, having city workers take over bringing the area up to grade will take longer, but will save about $150,000.
