Oil from two military bases may be reaching Puget Sound
Fort Lewis Army base and neighboring McChord Air Force Base have been flushing oil through their sewage system, which feeds into Puget Sound.
The pollution has triggered concerns among state and federal environmental officials, first alerted to the problem last year by a company that found sewage sludge at the treatment plant contaminated with up to 2 percent oil.
The state Department of Ecology is asking the Army to sign an agreement that it will work to keep oil from getting into sewage pipes and the Sound, or face possible legal action.
"It's a grave concern to the state because Fort Lewis discharges directly into Puget Sound," said Ecology spokeswoman Sandy Howard.
Fort Lewis officials said they already are taking steps to keep oil from reaching sewer pipes. They said they haven't decided if they will sign an agreement with the state.
But they note that the Army treatment plant, which takes effluent from the Air Force base as well, remains in compliance with its federal permit, and that recent tests of treated wastewater headed for the Sound don't raise a concern.
"There's not much oil going out in our effluent," said Phil Crawford, chief of environmental compliance at Fort Lewis' public-works department. "The numbers we've got don't indicate a problem."
It's not clear how much oil has flowed into the Sound through the plant's pipe for treated wastewater, which extends into the Sound north of the Nisqually River.
The plant isn't designed to filter out oil, so at least some is expected to have gotten through, said Howard, the Ecology spokeswoman. A group of current and former plant employees, who late last year filed a federal whistle-blower complaint about plant operations, estimated it could have been 5 gallons a day.
The sewage plant typically flushes out about 5 million gallons of treated wastewater every day, the equivalent of that created by a city of 50,000 people, said Tom Eaton of the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which regulates the plant.
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Oil from two military bases may be reaching Puget Sound
