POULSBO — The likelihood of another crack in the aging sewer line running along the east side of Liberty Bay will soon become almost non-existent as work continues to abandon the system in favor of a vastly improved one.

While doing so has been needed for a while, the direness of the situation was most apparent in September 2005 when the line leaked an estimated 553,000 gallons of raw sewage into the bay.

Once completed, the Bond Road lift station and force main will end the city of Poulsbo’s reliance on the dilapidated system.

The lift station was part of the infrastructure requirements for the College Marketplace. First Western Associates president Mark Zenger said he expects work to begin this spring.

“It’s our last piece of infrastructure and then we can focus totally on our marketing,” Zenger said.

City Engineer Andrzej Kasiniak said he also expects the sewage facility on the northwest corner of the Bond Road/State Route 305 intersection to be in place by the end of the year.

“I don’t think they’re going to start before April. It should have limited impacts on traffic,” Kasiniak said.

The project shouldn’t interfere with the SR 305 widening project, since Stan Palmer Construction of Port Orchard is the contractor for both projects, he said.

Any possible closures due to the lift station’s installation might be scheduled to occur on the same weekend as those associated with culvert installation on SR 305, which have to be scheduled, he said.

“We’re going to see if that’s possible. We will be coordinating with WSDOT (Washington State Department of Transportation) on that,” Kasiniak said.

While the lift station is ready for construction, the force main that will run along Bond Road between SR 305 and Lindvig Way is still in the analysis stage, he said.

“One of the challenges is how are we going to cross Lindvig. I would prefer boring under the road, but I don’t know if that’s possible,” Kasiniak said. The city council approved an $8,900 contract with Brown & Caldwell to evaluate the possibilities for the force main at its Feb. 7 meeting. “They are going to look at the entire system and we may design it in-house or go outside.”

While in-house would be less expensive, it may not be possible, depending on what the consultants discover, he said.

Regardless of who designs the line, Kasiniak said a connection to the Bond Road lift station will already be in place as part of its construction.