Wastewater spills into Lake Sammamish over weekend
Mar 25, 2019, 12:34 PM
Wastewater spilled into Lake Sammamish over the weekend, after a pump station went out early Sunday morning.
RELATED: State fines King County $118,000 over wastewater spills
RELATED: 4,000 gallons of sewage spill into inlet near Bremerton
At roughly 4 a.m. Sunday, the Heathfield pump station went out, causing what the Department of Natural Resources and Parks is calling a “brief overflow.”
A King County wastewater operator managed to halt the overflow just over 20 minutes later. A cleaning contractor has been on-site since then to aid in cleaning up the spill. Water quality samples are being take from the lake as a precaution.
There are currently posted signs in the area advising residents to avoid contact with the water “over the next several days.” It’s unclear exactly how much wasterwater spilled into Lake Sammamish before the overflow was contained.
The Puget Sound region has been no stranger to sewage spills in recent years. In early-March, 4,000 gallons of sewage poured into an inlet near Bremerton. Prior to that, a December windstorm saw 2,500 gallons of sewage flood into Dyes Inlet, directly north of the area affected by this most recent spill.
In August 2018, King County was fined $118,000 by the state for a series of wastewater overflows.
