Rainwater Causes Sewage Dumping Into Puget Sound
A good-sized storm can send upwards of 400 million gallons of sewage and filthy drainage water gurgling into the West Point Water Treatment Plant at Discovery Park. But there's a catch: The plant can handle only 300 million gallons a day.
So plant operators route the excess around the slowest part of the treatment process. The result: In these rainy days of winter, more than 100 million gallons of partially treated water can get dumped into Puget Sound in a single day.
At issue is a practice known as "blending," usually implemented when it's raining hard and lots of extra water seeps into sewage pipes. It allows sewage-plant operators to route a portion of the flow around a chunk of the treatment process, hit it with extra chlorine, then mix it with fully treated sewage before discharging it into streams, bays and other water bodies.
Washington's Ecology Department was among those who complained to the EPA that its proposed rule allows the blending practice during "wet weather," but doesn't define the term.
"The problem here in Puget Sound is that the definition of these rainy seasons could be construed as being nine months long," said Sue Joerger, executive director of the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, a Seattle-based environmental group. "It's a fairly significant loophole."
Also lined up against the idea are shellfish growers. About two-fifths of the nation's oysters, clams and other shellfish come from Washington.
"We see some really serious long-term economic effects from this," said Robin Downey, executive director of the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association. "Wouldn't it be nice if we could actually come up with some funding for these municipalities to upgrade these systems?"
Continue Reading this story from the Seattle P-I:
Sewage 'blending' stirs anger
