Since February 9th, the Seattle wastewater treatment plant has been dumping raw sewrage into the Puget Sound. From today's The Seattle Times:
Mechanical systems restored at West Point plant, but dirty water still flowing into Puget Sound
The West Point Treatment Plant is getting back on track after cleaning, repair and replacement of equipment destroyed in a catastrophic flood Feb. 9.
The effluent discharged to the Puget Sound still does not meet permit standards, but it’s getting cleaner. All damaged mechanical systems have been repaired or replaced.
Workers restored or rehabilitated a mile of tunnels, 151 electrical motors, two miles of insulation, 40 motor control centers, 125 electrical panels, 25 electrical transformers, more than 1,200 outlets and switches as well as sedimentation tanks bigger than football fields, and digester tanks.
Plant staff will continue fine-tuning the biological processes essential to secondary treatment.
The size of the spill:
The flood resulted in diverting 235 million gallons of untreated wastewater from the crippled plant — including 30 million gallons of raw sewage — into Puget Sound, and pouring hundreds of tons of partially treated solids for months into the Sound that normally would have been cleaned from effluent leaving the plant.
They are expecting to be back in full operation by sometime May - like I said, I'm not eating shellfish or seafood from Puget Sound any time soon...
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