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Public Works and Natural Resources Committee, Bellingham City Council

BEL-CON-PWN-2026-06-15 June 15, 2026 Public Works Committee City of Bellingham
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The Bellingham City Council's Public Works and Natural Resources Committee met on June 15, 2026, to address two items: a formal vote recommending adoption of the 2027–2032 Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), and an extended informational briefing on the city's new Comprehensive Sewer Plan initiative and the rapidly evolving national landscape for wastewater solids handling technology. The TIP vote was the committee's only formal action of the afternoon. Council Member Lisa Anderson moved to approve the resolution, and the committee voted unanimously to forward it to the full Council for adoption at the evening's regular meeting. The TIP is a state-required six-year capital planning document that must be submitted to the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) by July 1. Staff noted only one change from the version presented at the June 1 public hearing: the bike rack program was elevated from item 27 to item 6 in the program list, reflecting a public hearing comment calling for more proactive installation and maintenance of bike racks citywide. The more expansive discussion centered on the Comprehensive Sewer Plan — described by Public Works Director Joel Funt as the first truly comprehensive, system-wide wastewater planning effort the city has undertaken. Unlike prior planning exercises that examined individual system components in isolation, this effort will evaluate the full wastewater pipeline from residential and commercial connections through the collection system to the Post Point treatment facility and its outfall into Bellingham Bay. The plan is expected to take until 2028 to complete and will incorporate community engagement, infrastructure condition assessment, regulatory compliance planning, and long-term financial modeling. Deputy Public Works Director Mike Olinger provided an in-depth overview of the national state of wastewater solids handling technology, with particular focus on gasification — the technology receiving the most

**Item 1 — Resolution Adopting the 2027–2032 Transportation Improvement Program (AB 24963)** - **Action:** Committee voted unanimously to recommend approval of the resolution to the full City Council. - **Motion:** Council Member Lisa Anderson moved to approve. No seconder is identified by name in the transcript. - **Vote:** Unanimous (3-0, committee members). Non-committee members present did not vote on the committee recommendation. - **Staff Recommendation:** Approval, to allow submission to WSDOT by July 1 deadline. - **What it does:** The TIP is a six-year transportation capital planning and funding document required by state law. It programs funding for city capital projects maintaining and improving Bellingham's multimodal transportation network. The document does not appropriate funds; it establishes t…

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**Joel Funt, Public Works Director, City of Bellingham:** Positioned the Comprehensive Sewer Plan as a long-overdue system-wide planning effort and a responsible response to a rapidly changing regulatory and technological environment. Consistently emphasized that the plan is a framework, not a technology decision. Acknowledged the obligation to ratepayers. Expressed confidence that the planning process would give future councils the grounding to see decisions through. **Mike Olinger, Deputy Public Works Director, City of Bellingham:** Provided the technical national landscape overview. Characterized gasification as the most promising emerging technology but was candid about persistent operational challenges, site-specific constraints, and the gap between promise and proven municipal-scale performance. Consistently reinforced the message that the current path (maintaining compliant operations while the technology matures) is the most responsible near-term approach. **Tim Holman, Public Works Assistant Director (Transportation):** Presented the TIP as ready for adoption with minimal changes. Acknowledged the Safe Streets Bellingham/Walk and Roll advocacy requests but explained the constraints on flexibility given grant agreements and active design work. Noted that the annual TIP update cycle provides an appropriate annual venue for reprioritization. **Council Member Michael Lilliquist (Chair):** Substantively engaged …
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**Mike Olinger, on the EarthCare facility site visit:** "When we left the site, we were driving back to Philadelphia and all of us in the car kept trying to figure out what was in the car with us, what animal we brought with us and come to find out it was me. My cotton clothing that I was wearing while I visited this facility had soaked up the smell and the smell did not come out and so we ended up stopping so that I could buy new clothes so that the rest of us could still breathe and that I wo…
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- **By June 30, 2026:** Full City Council expected to vote on final adoption of the 2027–2032 TIP resolution at the June 15 evening regular meeting; submission to WSDOT must occur by July 1. - **Next 1–2 months:** Non-Motorized Program bid award expected to return to Council. Includes rapid-flashing beacons, flashing crosswalks, and bike lane installations. - **Summer 2026 (August):** Edmonds gasification facility hopes to restart its gasifier. Bellingham staff are monitoring closely. - **Ongoing through 2028:** Comprehensive Sewer Plan technical analysis and system evaluation underway; broader planning ef…

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**Before this meeting:** - The 2027–2032 TIP had been through a public hearing on June 1 but had not received a committee recommendation. - No formal city-wide comprehensive sewer planning effort had been underway; prior planning had addressed individual system components only. **After this meeting:** - The committee has unanimously recommended adoption of the 2027–2032 TIP for full Council action. The bike rack program has been formally elevated to program item 6. - The Council has been formally briefed on the scope and design philosophy of the Comprehensive Sewer Plan — the first system-wide wastewater planning effort in the city's history. - Council members have been br…
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--- # Public Works and Natural Resources Committee ## City of Bellingham | June 15, 2026 --- ## Meeting Overview The Public Works and Natural Resources Committee convened on the afternoon of June 15, 2026, as part of the City of Bellingham's block of afternoon committee meetings. The committee — chaired by Council Member Michael Lilliquist and also comprising Council Members Lisa Anderson and Jace Cotton — met in City Hall chambers with several non-committee council members present as well, including Council President Hannah Stone and Council Member Dan Hammill. The meeting got underway a few minutes late, delayed to ensure that audio and video recording systems were functioning for members of the public who could not attend in person — a small but telling detail about the city's commitment to public access. Two substantive items were on the agenda. The first was a major presentation on the city's forthcoming Comprehensive Sewer Plan and the rapidly evolving national landscape of wastewater solids handling technology — a subject that, as multiple council members noted, has been a source of ongoing deliberation, frustration, and hard-won institutional learning for nearly a decade. The second was a resolution recommending adoption of the 2027–2032 Transportation Improvement Program, the city's six-year capital planning document for its multimodal transportation network, which had already received a public hearing at the June 1st council meeting. Neither item was routine. The sewer presentation opened a window into genuinely unsettled terrain — a national wastewater industry grappling simultaneously with changing science on forever chemicals, aging infrastructure, and technologies that are promising but not yet proven at municipal scale. The TIP resolution, while procedurally straightforward, drew a thoughtful discussion about flexibility, community advocacy, and the long-term ambitions embedded in a document that can look deceptively like a list of line items. --- ## The Comprehensive Sewer Plan and the Future of Wastewater Solids Handling ### Setting the Stage Public Works Director Joel Funt opened the presentation with a note of context. Last fall, he reminded the committee, staff had appeared before council to describe the path forward for solids handling at Post Point, the city's wastewater treatment facility, following a notice of violation from the Northwest Clean Air Agency issued in March 2024. Now, he said, the city was turning its attenti…
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Utilities Transportation & Infrastructure Environmental Government Operations AB 24959 AB 24963 City Of Bellingham Public Works Department Of Ecology Department Of Health Earthcare Pennsylvania Edmonds Wastewater Jacobs Engineering Logan Hume Australia Northwest Clean Air Agency Safe Streets Bellingham Walk And Roll Bellingham Wsdot Dan Hammill Hannah Stone Jace Cotton Joel Funt Lisa Anderson Michael Lilliquist Mike Olinger Steve Day Tim Holman Budget Finance Comprehensive Plan Environmental Infrastructure Investment Land Use Policy Permitting Fees Transportation Policy Water Sewer Capacity