KINGSTON — Norman Road residents have known for a while that their summer of 2004 would be disrupted with the construction of the Kingston Sewer Treatment plant. And project managers aren’t holding back any details, knowing that they will be making life a little rough for those living in the 20 or so houses along the rural road.

“We’re not going to sugar coat it, we’re going to disrupt your lives,” project manager Floyd Bayless recently told a group of Norman Road residents who met with those involved with the upcoming construction process.

Norman Road is one of two access roads that allow crews to get to the new treatment site. As part of the plant construction, the road will be torn up to enable the placement of several underground water and utility lines for the facility.

Work is expected to start this week with Potelco crews, contracted by Puget Sound Energy, improving the power lines, said PSE spokesperson Dorothy Bracken.

“The electric system needs to be upgraded to help serve the electric demand the waste treatment plant will require,” she said. “Therefore, we will be starting (this week), upgrading the equipment that rests on the poles.”

Nearly half a dozen aging poles will also be replaced and another four to five poles will be physically moved closer to the road, so they will be within the county right-of-way.

Power service could be disturbed momentarily and the work will be done during daylight hours, Bracken said. Crews expect to be finished and off the road by June. Project contractor, Stan Palmer Construction, will then start work to install the piping.

Once the underground portion is done, crews will reconstruct the road by grinding and creating a gravel surface before paving it. Crews will flatten the road’s hills, creating a better line of sight, and reclaiming county right-of-ways that are on private property.

The bulk of the project will take about three months, with work starting no earlier than 7 a.m. and ending no later than 7 p.m., Bayless said.

Norman Road residents are also concerned about emergency vehicle and resident access as “a lot of us live and die by the ferry,” one resident said.

“We’ve been doing this for a long time, the guys know how to deal with driveways,” said Stan Palmer project manager Todd Haga. “We’ll never leave it where a car or ambulance can’t get through.”

In regards to landscaping on the right-of-ways, Bayless advised property owners to get out their trowels to save their “shovel-size” plants.

“If you want to keep them, you need to move them,” Bayless said. He added that trees needing to be cut down will become the property of Stan Palmer because they are in the county right-of-way.