The Spokane office of Stantec Inc., an international design firm with headquarters in Edmonton, Alberta, is one of three others that will be working on a recently awarded $575,000 contract to lead a statewide evaluation of 33 rest areas in Washington state. 

Alan Gay, a Spokane-based senior civil engineer and project manager for Stantec, says the company will review water and wastewater utilities at most of the rest areas across the state for the Washington state Department of Transportation. Work began the first week in October and will be completed before July 2019.

While Stantec offers a range of services including planning, engineering, architecture, and design, the company only will provide site evaluations for the project, Gay says.

Evaluations will include a uniform assessment of the condition of each facility to help WSDOT prioritize improvements in its requests to the Washington state Legislative for project funding, he says.

“These evaluations are just to help the department to decide what, from a maintenance standpoint, most needs its attention,” he says. “They’ve done small-scale assessments on a site-by-site basis, but nothing on this scale before.”

Evaluations may involve examination of vaults and manholes, well capacity testing, video inspection, septic drain field condition analysis, and follow-up testing as needed.

“The department wants to have a handle on how water and sewer utilities at each site are functioning,” he says. “So, we’ll conduct tests to determine how well all aspects of those systems are working, report our findings, and make recommendations.”

Gay says Stantec previously has provided similar evaluation services for WSDOT at: Ryegrass rest area just west of Vantage, Wash., Selah Creek rest area just north of Yakima, Wash., and Quincy Valley rest area just west of Quincy, Wash. 

“We’ll be building on those earlier experiences and using similar types of tests for assessment of wells and sewer systems,” he says. 

Gay adds that sites occasionally are found to be operating normally and no changes or recommendations need to be made.

“Sometimes we find things; sometimes we don’t,” he says. “But at the very least, with this evaluation, the WSDOT will have evaluated these sites under one common system, which will give it a better picture of what the most critical needs are among these different areas.” 

All upcoming evaluations will be performed by staff from three of Stantec’s office locations, Spokane and Bellevue, Wash., and Portland, Ore., Gay says.

“The strategy is to divide up the schedule by location and assign different office teams to each,” he says. “We also need to coordinate with any subcontractors who are helping us, as well as make sure key personnel are on site.”

Stantec’s Spokane office occupies 7,000 square feet of space on the third floor of the Flour Mill commercial building, at 621 W. Mallon, and currently employs 16 people.