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Date: April 6, 2017

To: Lucille Lentil, PE
Public Works Director and County Engineer, Whitman County
From: Cole Swenson
Geoffrey Morse
Justin Keffeler
Subject: Recommendation Report for Whitman County Public Restroom Grant

Attached is our report for our report, Upgrading Whitman County Public Restroom Facilities: A
Recommendation Report. We have finished our previously proposed points of research, which
include determining necessary changes to existing facilities, deciding whether it will be cheaper
to upgrade or to construct new facilities, creating a budget, and finding a construction firm.

To complete our research, we contacted the Whitman County Parks and Recreation department
and spent time asking them about how they organized and executed similar projects.
Additionally, we visited sites relevant to this project, which included sites and rest stops for
which the Parks and Rec department previously collected data. Finally, we researched
construction firms that specialized in the construction of pre-built public restrooms.

The well-informed recommendation we can make is that the Public Works department should
tailor the grant money to add certain renovations and additions to certain sites. These sites
include Sunnyside Park, Klemengard Park, and Wawawai Park.

The opportunity to contribute our time and effort to this project was greatly appreciated. Please
dont hesitate to contact us with any questions you may have about this report. You may reach
Cole Swenson at cole.swenson@wsu.edu, Geoffrey Morse at geoffrey.morse@wsu.edu, and
Justin Keffeler at justin.keffeler@wsu.edu.
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Upgrading Whitman County Public Restroom Facilities:

A Recommendation Report

Prepared for: Lucille Lentil, PE

Public Works Director
Whitman County Engineer

Prepared by: Cole Swenson

Geoffrey Morse
Justin Keffeler

April 6, 2017
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Executive Summary

On February 28th, a memo was released to the people of Whitman County by Lucille Lentil
soliciting ideas for the renovation of public facilities. This was the result of Whitman County
receiving a grant from the state for upgrading the aging public restroom facilities.
Currently, many facilities in the county reflect poorly on Whitman County; they are unsanitary,
undersized, and not environmentally friendly. The objective of the upgrades will be to make
public restrooms more safe, accessible, sustainable, and easy to maintain. The new facilities must
become ADA compliant and be significantly more environmentally conscious than the current
ones.
Lucille Lentil and her team have since approved our proposed tasks culminating in an idea of
how best to apply the grant money. These tasks included determining exactly what changes
would need to be made to meet the Public Works departments goals, gathering site data to
support the recommendation, researching public restroom facilities of similar scope and cost, and
formulating a budget to suit specific facility costs to the allotted funds. Our last point of research
was to find the right construction firm for the job.
We found that the cost of removing and emplacing new restroom facilities far outweighs any
current flaws. All the visited restrooms are up to ADA standard, and have adequate space to
accommodate the small number of cheap additions that are available. While the existing facilities
may be old and dirty, we found it would be very easy and low-cost to fix this.
Based on these conclusions, it is our recommendation that the Public Works department tailor the
grant money to add certain renovations and additions to certain sites. These sites include
Sunnyside Park, Klemengard Park, and Wawawai Park.
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Table of Contents

Page:
Letter of Transmittal.. 1
Title Page... 2
Executive Summary... 3
Table of Contents....... 4

Introduction............5

Research Methods......6
Results....7
Conclusions....8

Recommendations...........9

References........9
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Introduction

On February 28th, a memo was released to the people of Whitman County by Lucille Lentil
soliciting ideas for the renovation of public facilities. This was the result of Whitman County
receiving a grant from the state for upgrading the aging public restroom facilities.
Currently, funds have not been publicized and any solutions are still in the planning stages. The
rest stop changes that need to be made should make the sites meet a few criteria we set out in our
research. References are also available at the end of the report in addition to figures.
The objective of the publicized memo was to solicit ideas to identify current facilities in need of
upgrade and locations where a new facility is needed. Lentil also expressed desire for future
problems to be solved with this grant money. Her goals for Whitman County are to improve
accessibility, sustainability, and ease of maintenance. The main goal of soliciting ideas from the
public was to get the most improvement for the money Whitman County will be given with the
grant. Therefore, our primary research involved determining which upgrades are needed to
current facilities by visiting the site of local restrooms, then finding documents from past
construction to determine if the upgrades we want to do would be cheaper than replacing the
current restrooms. The avenue the P&R department usually goes through to perform updates
were researched, and a construction firm was found that could provide all the necessary changes
to a handful of chosen sites.
We will elaborate on our research methods, our results, the conclusions we drew, and finally
deliver our recommendation to the Whitman County Public Works department.
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Research Methods

To begin our research, we started by searching for information that already existed through the
Whitman County Parks and Recreation department about parks and current operations, our
secondary research. We accomplished this in two ways: by researching online and then by
speaking to the department office workers. This gave us an idea of what parks we should visit as
well as how current facilities are managed and constructed.

Task 1: Determine necessary changes for current facilities to become more accessible, safe,
environmentally friendly, etc.

We visited the sites and inspected the restrooms. While investigating the restrooms, we had a list
of criteria that we evaluated for each one:
Is the restroom accessible to all people?
Are the restrooms safe to use for all people, including the disabled?
Are the restrooms functional?
Is any portion of the infrastructure needing renovation?
Do the restrooms have trash cans, sinks or sanitizer, baby changing stations (if feasible), railing
for the disabled, and a way to dry hands (air or towel)?
These may seem subjective, but simple yes-or-no questions are an easier way to test the basic
functionality of a site. Cumulatively, these checks provide a basis on which to make a case for
the fundamental question of our research: renovate or replace? If we deem the deficiency
outweighs the sufficiency, then we may lean towards replacement, and vice versa.
Maintenance of new facilities differs from maintenance of old ones. New sites would cost less to
maintain. With the expected increase in traffic due to the population increase cited in the memo,
maintenance costs should rise and old sites would see higher rates of maintenance, resulting in
higher costs when comparing to new sites.

Task 2: Determine whether it will be cheaper to construct a new facility or to upgrade the
existing one, then sort facilities based on need, from lowest to highest priority

For a restroom to be removed and replaced with a new one, the price of the new facility must
outweigh the detriment of the current facilities. Thus, the condition of a facility must be in a state
where maintenance or unusability causes long term costs such as supplementing port-o-potties.
We obtained past project descriptions from the P&R department listing the project information
and financial status. These documents aided in the evaluation of certain cost-to-benefit ratios that
affected our decisions for each site. Seeing the cost breakdown was instrumental in our
knowledge of construction costs as well as the actual changes made in past projects.

Task 3: Find a construction firm

Generally, when a construction firm is needed, the person requiring one will request bids from
multiple contractors. To avoid this, we did online research of firms that deal directly with the
construction of parks restrooms which already have prices and information listed.
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Results

After contacting the Parks and Rec department, we located the following high traffic parks to
inspect: Kelmengard Park, Sunnyside Park, Wawawai Park and Boyer Park. We discussed how
maintenance is conducted and found that whether the park is city, county or state, the appropriate
facilities department monitors and maintains them. Security is on a need basis, as some parks and
restrooms are locked at night while those that arent locked are patrolled by police or security.

Task 1: Determine necessary changes for current facilities become more accessible, safe,
environmentally friendly, etc.

Sunnyside Park:
This park has a total of three restrooms. Two are serviceable, one is locked down and unusable.
The two serviceable restrooms are new. They are in easily accessible locations where they are
wheelchair accessible. They have running water, lights and an air dryer. There are several
handicap bars for easy access for disabled. They lack baby changing stations while there is ample
room for one to be installed. The toilet seats are very thin and cannot be raised. There were not
very clean.

Klemengard Park:
This park has two sets of restrooms, one near the picnic area and one across the river.

New set near picnic area:

These new unisex restrooms are handicap-accessible. They are non-flush toilets with no
running water. They have hand sanitizer. There is not enough room for a baby changer. They
have no lighting.

Old set across the river:

These are gender-specific and not very handicap-accessible due to tight cornering. They are
non-flush toilets. There are sinks but there is no running water, but hand sanitizer is
provided. They are very dirty and have no lighting.

Wawawai Park:
There are two sets of restrooms here, one set at the parking area and the other set near the picnic
area.

Parking area restrooms:

These restrooms are old. The roofing is very mossy and appears to be coming apart. It is
handicap-accessible. There is running water for washing hands and hand sanitizer. There are
paper towels. There are non-flush toilets. It has proper lighting. Baby changers were present.
It is very dirty and covered with bugs.

Picnic area restrooms:

These are handicap-accessible. There is running water for washing hands and hand sanitizer.
There are paper towels. They are non-flush toilets. It does have proper lighting. Baby
changers were not present. It is very dirty and covered with insects.
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Boyer Park:
These restrooms are in top condition. They have all the amenities that are required from a park
restroom and everything is up to date.

Task 2: Determine whether it will be cheaper to construct a new facility or to upgrade the
existing one, then sort facilities based on need, from lowest to highest priority

The cost of emplacing a brand-new facility can cost from 30,000 to 40,000 dollars which does
not include the cost of removing the old facilities. Upgrading new facilities to make them safer
and more pleasant to use is generally the preferred route, unless the facilities require continual
and excessive expenditures.

Task 3: Find a construction firm

The company we found, CXT Inc, specializes in pre-built toilet buildings and listed their added
cost options, including solar fan and light kits, wastebaskets, and hand sanitizer dispensers. The
P&R department relayed to us that they did commendable work at a good price point, a key
aspect of the company we hoped to discover. Since they were the ones to deliver in the past, we
expected them to provide the same level of service in the future.
It should be considered that vetting firms and taking bids on the project will undoubtedly be a
more involved process than simply giving the job to some company that has worked out for the
county in the past. However, we did quite a bit of research based off the countys
recommendation and feel our choice is justified for the level of interaction required in our
research tasks for this report.

Conclusions

In this section, we will discuss the conclusions weve drawn from our research on restrooms in
Whitman County.

The cost of removing and emplacing new restroom facilities far outweighs any current flaws. All
the visited restrooms are up to ADA standard, and have adequate space to accommodate the
needed changes. There is no question that when considering the immense cost of replacement,
the relatively small number of cheap additions that are available would be the best choice. While
the existing facilities may be old and dirty, we found it would be very easy and low-cost to fix
this. When considering the population changes in the near future and these restrooms ability to
handle them, we conclude that there is no overt requirement for new facilities and that our
recommended plan will give an optimal renovation of each site with regards to cost and impact.
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Recommendations

We recommend that the Whitman County Public Works department follow our plan as follows:

Sunnyside Park: We recommend that new toilet seats be installed and that they put in baby
changing stations. Increased cleaning efforts will be required as well.

Klemengard: Lighting should be installed. Baby changers would be recommended but there is no
room for this and reconstruction would be costly. Increase cleaning efforts in the future.

Wawawai Park: The parking lot restroom needs to be reroofed to satisfy Lentils request to
mitigate future problems. These bathrooms were covered in bugs. They need to be cleaned more
often and have some effort to reduce the number of bugs because it attracts a lot of spiders which
could be potentially harmful. People are less likely to use the facilities due to this problem.

Boyer Park: No action is recommended as these are in outstanding condition.

References

Brubaker, R. (n.d.). OHSA TOILET REGULATIONS AND SUPPORT. Retrieved March 10,
2017, from http://americanrestroom.org/gov/ohsa/

Rodriguez, J. (n.d.). Handicap Toilet Requirements: Construction of Accessible Bathrooms.

Retrieved March 10, 2017, from https://www.thebalance.com/ada-construction-guidelines-
for-accesible-bathrooms-844778

Whitman County Parks and Recreation Comprehensive Plan. Whitman county. Accessed
March 23, 2017. http://www.whitmancounty.org/ParksRec/Index_Pages/PDF_Files/Comp
%20Plan%202004-2009.pdf

Leinweber, Melissa. Whitman County Faculties Event Coordinator. 509-397-6263

Reynolds, Bob. Director of Whitman County Faculties. 509-397-6263