Environmental Services will close the Eastbank Esplanade next week between OMSI and the Hampton Opera Center. The trail will close on Monday, April 18 to allow work crews to safely dismantle and remove a conveyor erected over the path in 2006. The closure will last through Friday, April 22.

Signs will direct cyclists and pedestrians to use SE Water Avenue to detour around the closure.

The conveyor carried soil and rocks mined during the East Side Big Pipe project to barges in the Willamette River. Barges shipped about 550,000 cubic yards of material to Ross Island for use in the lagoon restoration project.

The city completed mining the nearly six-mile-long, 22-foot wide East Side Big Pipe in October 2010. Environmental Services will activate the tunnel this winter to collect sewage and stormwater for transport to the city's main wastewater treatment plant.

Completing the East Side Big Pipe will reduce combined sewer overflow (CSO) events to the Willamette River from about 100 per year to an average of four events each winter and one event every three summers.

For more information contact Linc Mann, 503-823-5328