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Short window for building Photo by Jim Craven Garren Clark of Adroit Construction saws up a board Tuesday to be used on the new sewage treatment plant, at left, on Mount Ashland. Crews hope to finish the plant before the snow flies. Sewage plant nearly finished By PAUL FATTIG MOUNT ASHLAND -- October usually finds Jeff Hanson looking to the heavens for signs of snow. Not this year. Balmy temperatures. Blue sky. Short sleeves. It's all fine with the assistant general manager of Ski Ashland. A construction crew atop the mountain is racing Mother Nature to have the new sewage treatment plant completed and running before the first snow flies. "We're hoping to have it all done the first week in November," Hanson said. "We'll have the plant pretty much closed in within a week." Work on the plant began Aug. 4, the day after U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones in Portland denied a request by the Rogue Group Sierra Club to issue a preliminary injunction to stop the new sewage treatment plant atop Mount Ashland. The Rogue Group had argued that the proposed plant could contaminate the Ashland Creek watershed. The lawsuit also had charged that the construction project would violate several aspects of the National Environmental Policy Act. In addition, Rogue Group members said that allowing construction of the plant would open the door for Ski Ashland to move forward with its expansion plans, which the group also opposes on environmental grounds. The Forest Service and the Mount Ashland Association, which had acted as an intervener in the case, countered that the project would not harm the environment. Moreover, they had insisted that the old sewage facility, built as a temporary plant in 1981, was faulty. The Rogue Group had challenged that claim. The Mount Ashland Association, the governing body of the nonprofit resort, had an agreement with the Rogue Group not to move forward with the sewage treatment plant until the judge ruled in the case. When the ruling came, construction began immediately. The publicly owned resort is in the Ashland Ranger District of the Rogue River National Forest. A summer snowstorm hit the mountain in August, causing Hanson to wonder if construction would be completed in time for the 1999-00 season. "That was a little worrisome," he acknowledged. The current system consists of septic lines from the lodge and another from the ski shop to a 1,500-gallon septic tank located in the parking lot. It was built in 1981 as a temporary solution, Hanson said. "It did a good job for years but it doesn't meet today's standards," he said. With the new system, a sewer line has been hooked to the old line. It then snakes down around the mountain along an already existing road to the new sewage plant a quarter-mile away. The road is also a popular mountain bike trail during the summer. Two valves at the top can guide the sewage to either the old system or new system as desired. The old system is still permitted for low flows during the summer. The new plant, made of concrete, encloses four tanks with a total storage capacity of about 30,000 gallons. Each tank filters the effluent until that liquid pumped to the drain fields is "clear water," Hanson said. The storage tanks will be pumped out annually. Pumps push the water a maximum 75 feet in elevation to the drain fields. There are 15 drain fields, each 50 feet by 70 feet. Several shallow wells are being dug down the mountain from the drain field to continually monitor the groundwater. Native grasses and other indigenous plants will cover the drain fields. Total cost for the new plant is about $675,000. The general contractor is Adroit Construction Co. of Ashland. "It's clearly an investment to do the job right, more than a little ski area like this would like to spend," he said. "But this is what environmental (concerns) required us to do. We wanted to do it right." When finished, the plant should have a long life, Hanson said. The average date for ski season opening is Dec. 10, but the goal each year is to open the day before Thanksgiving. "We hope it turns to snow in early November," Hanson said, then added, "We just don't want it now." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA