Seattle Dumps Waste Into Puget Sound

ENS reports that the City of Seattle and King County have been ordered to do more to prevent waste water from overflowing into Puget Sound by the Environmental Protection Agency. The agency issued compliance orders on Wednesday for the two Clean Water Act discharge permits involved. During heavy rainstorms combined sewer systems, which carry both waste water and storm water runoff, can overflow treatment plants. The excess contaminated water gets pumped directly into the Sound and tributaries with no treatment. Seattle is not the only city with this problem. Portland, Oregon's combined system is regularly overwhelmed during the six month rainy season. Its overflow sewage goes directly into the Willamette River that flows through the city. Portland is building an expensive, 10 foot diameter sewer pipe to capture overflows and prevent such untreated discharges.

In 2007 Seattle's combined system overflowed 249 times and metropolitan King County's system overflowed 87 times. Each year an estimated 1.94 billion gallons of polluted water is discharged into Puget Sound. Compliance orders are the result of an investigation in March 2008. The city's order requires it to prepare an emergency overflow response plan, a plan to create more storage for overflows and a plan to clean its collection system in a more systematic way. King County is required to upgrade its Elliot West treatment plant and document overflows after a rainfall event.