12,000 gallons of raw sewage spill into Lake Washington near Seward Park
Aug 28, 2015, 7:19 AM | Updated: 3:10 pm
The City of Seattle is investigating why 12,000 gallons of untreated sewage spilled out of, and into Lake Washington recently, near Seward Park. (David Doherty Flickr)
(David Doherty Flickr)
Some might briefly be calling it “Sewage Park” after a spill on Lake Washington.
The City of Seattle is investigating why 12,000 gallons of untreated sewage spilled into the lake near Seward Park.
The city tested the water for fecal coliform after the spill on Wednesday, but hasn’t released the results yet. The health department also wants a couple day’s worth of tests before they’ll open up the beaches; closed in the wake of the spill.
The beach will likely open Saturday or later.
The spill extends past Seward Park. It was about a mile north of the park beach, so swimming is not a good idea all along the shore.
Katie Gunter is thanking her lucky stars she did not swim at Seward Park beach this week. She was safe at the playground Thursday with her three kids when she found out about the sewage spill.
“Eww, I think that’s awful. That’s really gross,” Gunter said.
Nearby, there were boats in the Seward Park cove with swimming rafts attached, despite signage indicating it’s considered unsafe to swim at the moment.
As Gunter expressed her disgust over the spill, her 5-week-old baby slept in the stroller. But her 5-year-old son was curious about what the commotion was about. He asked what was up?
“So the stuff that we don’t need?” her son asked.
“A bunch of potty got leaked out in to our lake,” Gunter explained to her young son. “What do you think about that?”
“It’s weird,” he said.
Weird. But, that’s not the word other parents were using, especially one group that told me they had been swimming in the lake an hour after the spill occurred on Wednesday.
