Public Works

The Public Works Department strives to operate, preserve, and enhance the City's physical infrastructure and transportation systems, by providing a diverse range of services that include; street maintenance, stormwater operation and maintenance, wastewater collection and treatment, compost, trash collection and recycling, and drinking water treatment and distribution. Whether they are filling potholes, or plowing snow off the roads, the crews are out there working hard to to keep our City running safely and efficiently. 

Engineering and Construction
The Engineering Department provides a full range of civil engineering services for infrastructure improvements, utilities (water, sewer, stormwater, and wastewater), and review of public/private development projects. Those services also include transportation, City planning, grant administration, GIS mapping database, and ROW management. 

Streets Maintenance and Collection
The City of Port Townsend’s Transportation division maintains over 90 miles of roads. General. This includes pothole repairs, street striping, street surface restoration after repairs to water and sewer systems, mowing and trimming of vegetation encroaching on the right-of-way, disposal of debris and fallen trees, and streetsweeping.

Stormwater
The Stormwater system in the City of Port Townsend is designed to reduce the discharge of pollutants into water resources to protect water quality and public health for our residents. Our stormwater system is a combination of streams, lakes, wetlands, pipes, catch basins and flood control sites. Stormwater runs down our pavement–gutters, sidewalks, roads, driveways, etc.–into the storm drains and straight to the Puget Sound without any treatment.

Water Resources
The Port Townsend Water Division is staffed by nine State certified Operators. Water Distribution and Water Quality are the two units of the Water Division. Water Distribution is responsible for reading meters, installing new meters, repairing leaks, fire hydrant maintenance, system flushing, routine water sampling, and fixing water supply related issues. The Water Quality Division is responsible for water treatment and safe drinking water compliance.

Wastewater Treatment
Our Wastewater treatment plant is nestled on the shore of the Chinese Garden Lagoon in the North Beach neighborhood. The City’s wastewater division is responsible for wastewater collection and treatment. Each year the plant treats 286-million (800k daily) gallons of wastewater from homes and businesses which travel through underground pipes, to our wastewater treatment facility where the wastewater is treated by removing contaminants, solids, and harmful bacteria that meets all regulations from the Department of Ecology before being released into the Straits of Juan De Fuca.

Compost Facility
At the City of Port Townsend’s Composting Facility, we use an aerated static process to transform three waste streams (we call them resources) to make a “Class A” compost that is available for all of your gardening and soil amending needs. Our goal is to make the best compost we can and to return those much-needed nutrients to the soil so it can be used by the plants that help to make our community beautiful.

Trash Collection/Recycling

You can sign up for service, view your neighborhood trash and recycling pick-up schedule, as well obtain more information related to trash collection on the Waste Connections website.