Business View Magazine
3
Infrastructure
Octob r – Business View 111
from the IRRP should combine in 2016 to allow the
city to begin handling issues on a proactive, rather than
reactive, basis.
“We’re really trying to get ourselves prepared for
that,” Bealey said.
A dedicated website – GoWallaWalla.us – has
been established to keep residents updated on past
and current public works projects, and the latter list
includes this year’s planned resurfacing of Rose Street
from Thirteenth Avenue to Ninth Avenue, upgrading
sidewalk ramps at intersections and making water and
storm water utility improvements.
Sidewalks will be also constructed on the south side
of Rose Street where none now exist within the stretch
and between the Blue Mountain Mall and Jade Street.
“Thus far, we have just kind of been doing the best we
can to prioritize those projects,” Bealey said. “Once we
have (the matrix and the full IRRP funding), we’ll really
be able to prioritize the projects in a very quantifiable
approach.”
But lest anyone think Walla Walla is playing catch-up
in all areas, it’s certainly not.
The city has long taken a progressive approach
to sustainability, which is best illustrated by the
aforementioned full-reclamation wastewater treatment
process – alongside a surface water system that pulls
from a watershed source about 14 miles away and
brings the water down through a pipeline whose
change in elevation is enough to run a hydropower
generation unit at the bottom end.
Not to mention, Walla Walla is also moving toward
more LED street lighting, pursuit of non-certified
LEED buildings in appropriate renovation and new
construction projects and slowing storm water runoff
on roadways.
“That was just an amazing thing that they did, probably
25 or 30 years ago,” Bealey said. “That was an excellent
thing to do. The forefathers of my predecessors really
