Yeah boy - as residents along SW. Multnomah Blvd. have noticed, Portland "The City That Works" can't do much of anything right. Eight years ago, CoPo had a spiffy new sewer line placed under Multnomah Blvd. It's been blowing apart for the past three years, and according to court records, the city already has paid $708,627 to clean 500,000 gallons of sewage out of Multnomah-area properties, divert sewage to a Washington County utility and make temporary repairs.
Now there's a whole lot of finger-wagging and generally uncivil recrimination flying back and forth in the legal system, as CoPo plames the contractors and the contractors blame CoPo. Turns out that CoPo approved changes in the design after the contract was awarded; a change which called for using pvc pipe rather than stainless steel or other material. This was going to save a pile of cash, to the tune of around $100,000. And it did - right up until the pvc started failing.
Now, the whole line needs to be replaced - which should cost around $6 million. You can see why the City'd be litigating this mess: that $6 million could could be used for planning another shiny new streetcar route!
Meanwhile, the line that was supposed to last 50 years but only made it to five before failing is still buried under the road.
