Quick response prevents flooding at Seattle’s West Point Treatment Plant
Jul 19, 2019, 2:56 PM
West Point Treatment Plant. (King County)
(King County)
A quick response during a power outage prevented flooding at the West Point Treatment Plant early Friday.
Just after 1 a.m. a power outage left more than 10,000 Seattle City Light customers without power in Seattle’s Queen Anne, Fremont, Magnolia, Interbay and Ballard neighborhoods.
The power outage caused pumping throughout the wastewater treatment plan to shut down, officials said.
Workers sent “an estimated 3 million gallons of stormwater mixed with wastewater into Puget Sound through an emergency outfall pipe for 27 minutes,” a spokesperson for the Department of Natural Resources and Parks Wastewater Treatment Division wrote in a news release.
After the West Point flooding in February 2017, officials said the county replaced equipment, updated control systems and increased training of plant operators.
Those investments, officials said, paid off Friday when similar conditions occurred at the plant.
The emergency bypass was reported to health and regulatory agencies and King County Employees said they would collect water samples and post signs in the vicinity of the outfall pipe on Friday.
