PIPELINES IN A LAND THAT MAKES PIPEDREAMS COME TRUE
We need more pipedream thinking to preserve our pipeline bridge, our monument to a community that makes pipedreams real. We need a new partner organization.
Jim Hill, owner of the Great Northern Railway, Wenatchee Canal Company and East Wenatchee land, financed the bridge. He could have made more money but his pipedream thinking designed the bridge to support a highway and trolley line. A highway did roll across it and so do Loop Trail users. LINK plans trolleys to reduce Seller bridge traffic.
After the highway became obsolete, the Wenatchee Reclamation District (WRD) bought it for $1. The WRD is a non-profit junior taxing district whose revenues provide irrigation water in Chelan and Douglas Counties. Its three-person board, including Allen Witte from Witte Orchards in Douglas County, decides how much revenue is needed for reclamation and sends documentation to the Treasurers who tax owners of the water-rights acreage.
In the 1980s the WRD partnered with the community’s pipedream of a Loop Trail. Instead of investing $70-80,000 for bridge repairs, the Board invested $250,000 to build access.
The City of Wenatchee agreed to maintain access and assume liability for users, even though the trail loops outside city limits.
A few years ago the bridge was declared “at the end of its useful life.” Not so after $222,000 from the WRD, $202,000 from the City of Wenatchee and its partners, and $1.4 million from the stimulus. The beautified bridge should be protected from the elements and load rated to carry 10.2 tons of traffic alongside the pipeline’s flowing waters. The bridge can support either LINK buses and trolleys or 20 people who weigh 1,000 pounds each. The bridge will last longer than our far-in-the-future offspring who will pay for the stimulus.
But the City of Wenatchee has to beg for partner money to pay for improvements beyond water reclamation. It gets support from organizations such as Northern Fruit, the Port of Douglas County, the Department of Transportation, and The Wenatchee Convention and Visitors’ Bureau because they get the community value of the pipeline bridge. Nick Gerti, the Treasurer for the City of East Wenatchee, recalled the city contributed $5,000 for the original engineering study, but the Council has not received a request for the most recently completed construction.
We need bigger thinking to fund this bridge. We need a new partner for the WRD, perhaps a non-profit partner with members from both sides of the bridge to provide access, fund the liabilities, and raise money regularly for maintenance and enhancements.
Members of that partnership would be beneficiaries, such as recreation users, medical providers, land trusts, port authorities, municipalities, LINK, bicyclists, historical preservationists, and community-minded companies such as Northern Fruit.
The City of Wenatchee’s Allison Williams and Mayor Dennis Johnson are already thinking those pipedream thoughts. Williams suggested a fund could be invested with the Community Foundation. Those pipedream ideas are going to be talked about at a meeting of Loop Trail users on Tuesday April 21, at 5:30 pm at Wenatchee City Hall. If we can’t be there, we can support their pipedream ideas and participate. And if we ever meet Jim Hill in the great wherever-after, we can both say good work partner.
Jim Hill, owner of the Great Northern Railway, Wenatchee Canal Company and East Wenatchee land, financed the bridge. He could have made more money but his pipedream thinking designed the bridge to support a highway and trolley line. A highway did roll across it and so do Loop Trail users. LINK plans trolleys to reduce Seller bridge traffic.
After the highway became obsolete, the Wenatchee Reclamation District (WRD) bought it for $1. The WRD is a non-profit junior taxing district whose revenues provide irrigation water in Chelan and Douglas Counties. Its three-person board, including Allen Witte from Witte Orchards in Douglas County, decides how much revenue is needed for reclamation and sends documentation to the Treasurers who tax owners of the water-rights acreage.
In the 1980s the WRD partnered with the community’s pipedream of a Loop Trail. Instead of investing $70-80,000 for bridge repairs, the Board invested $250,000 to build access.
The City of Wenatchee agreed to maintain access and assume liability for users, even though the trail loops outside city limits.
A few years ago the bridge was declared “at the end of its useful life.” Not so after $222,000 from the WRD, $202,000 from the City of Wenatchee and its partners, and $1.4 million from the stimulus. The beautified bridge should be protected from the elements and load rated to carry 10.2 tons of traffic alongside the pipeline’s flowing waters. The bridge can support either LINK buses and trolleys or 20 people who weigh 1,000 pounds each. The bridge will last longer than our far-in-the-future offspring who will pay for the stimulus.
But the City of Wenatchee has to beg for partner money to pay for improvements beyond water reclamation. It gets support from organizations such as Northern Fruit, the Port of Douglas County, the Department of Transportation, and The Wenatchee Convention and Visitors’ Bureau because they get the community value of the pipeline bridge. Nick Gerti, the Treasurer for the City of East Wenatchee, recalled the city contributed $5,000 for the original engineering study, but the Council has not received a request for the most recently completed construction.
We need bigger thinking to fund this bridge. We need a new partner for the WRD, perhaps a non-profit partner with members from both sides of the bridge to provide access, fund the liabilities, and raise money regularly for maintenance and enhancements.
Members of that partnership would be beneficiaries, such as recreation users, medical providers, land trusts, port authorities, municipalities, LINK, bicyclists, historical preservationists, and community-minded companies such as Northern Fruit.
The City of Wenatchee’s Allison Williams and Mayor Dennis Johnson are already thinking those pipedream thoughts. Williams suggested a fund could be invested with the Community Foundation. Those pipedream ideas are going to be talked about at a meeting of Loop Trail users on Tuesday April 21, at 5:30 pm at Wenatchee City Hall. If we can’t be there, we can support their pipedream ideas and participate. And if we ever meet Jim Hill in the great wherever-after, we can both say good work partner.
Posted by JSR at 4/23/2009 1:14 AM 
Categories: Serving Others,Build Better Communities,Politics,Bicycling
Tags: Pipeline Bridge Reclamation Bridge City of Wenatchee Wenatchee Reclamation District
Categories: Serving Others,Build Better Communities,Politics,Bicycling
Tags: Pipeline Bridge Reclamation Bridge City of Wenatchee Wenatchee Reclamation District
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