Parts of the Atascadero Creek bank were damaged during recent rain storms, leading to concerns about a nearby waste station potentially flooding.
Behind Wastewater Facility Lift Station 5, the biggest lift station in the city of Atascadero, a significant amount of the Atascadero Creek bank eroded as a result of the recent rainfall. The station pumps about three-quarters of the waste in the city of Atascadero.
Ryan Hayes, the city’s Deputy Director of Public Works, says the city was concerned that without repairing the creek bank they would lose infrastructure at Lift Station 5 if the creek rose again.
“So what’s being done right now is we had a contractor come in — we actually had a biologist come in first and do an emergency permit on behalf of the city to be able to work in Atascadero Creek — the contractor came in, cut a keyway along the bottom of where the slope had been eroded away and has placed about a thousand tons of rock riprap, large boulders, and then backfilled that to act as a bank armory,” said Ryan Hayes, City of Atascadero Deputy Director of Public Works.
Hayes says that thanks to the city’s recent repairs, the lift station is now well-protected from rising water levels.
