After the last four combined sewer overflow tanks in the city of Spokane’s Integrated Clean Water Plan are completed this year, the city will have about 16 million gallons of sewage storage available to help keep the wastewater treatment facilities from overflowing into the Spokane River during storms, says Marlene Feist, spokesperson for the city of Spokane’s utility department.

The smallest of the CSO tanks currently under construction is a $2.8 million, 180,000-gallon basin at the northwest corner of Riverside Avenue and Napa Street, next to the old McKinley School in east central Spokane. Spokane-based Max J. Kuney Co. is the contractor on the project, which is scheduled to be completed this year.

Max J. Kuney also is the contractor on a $13 million, 1.5 million-gallon tank at Riverside and Lee Street, about two blocks east of the Riverside-Napa project. The Riverside-Lee tank is expected to be completed this summer.

Garco Construction Inc., of Spokane, is the contractor on a $20 million, 2.1 million gallon CSO tank project located just north of the downtown branch of the Spokane Public Library. A pedestrian plaza will be constructed above the tank, which is expected to be completed in the fall.

A few blocks west of that project, a joint venture of Halme Construction Inc., of Airway Heights, and Walker Construction Inc., of Spokane, is the contractor on the $16.3 million, 2.4 million-gallon First Avenue and Adams Street CSO project, which is expected to be completed in early summer. The First-and-Adams project will be capped with a public plaza and a dog park.

All of the CSO work, which has included more than 20 tanks, is part of the city’s ongoing Cleaner River Faster initiative, in which the city is investing more than $300 million in projects to improve water quality in the Spokane River.