Dori: Tugboats can’t dump waste in Puget Sound, but 250M gallon spill is fine?

The Environmental Protection Agency has made a ruling that bans the dumping of raw sewage into Puget Sound, which is backed by a bunch of environmental activist groups.

Tugboat companies are pointing out that they already have strict regulations. They must be three miles offshore to flush tanks into the sound.

This is odd to me. Remember two years ago, when the mismanagement of Dow Constantine and King County led to 250 million gallons of raw sewage being dumped into the sound from the West Point treatment plant at Discovery Park?

And then a few months later, they did an investigation and found that it didn’t hurt the water at all. Nature cleansed itself, we were told.

RELATED: Damaged wastewater plant continues to dump raw sewage

So when the government dumps a quarter-billion gallons of raw sewage into the sound, it’s not a problem. Just two weeks ago, 19,400 gallons of wastewater went into Puget Sound off Richmond Beach because a pump station lost power. Again, it’s no big deal, according to the county.

Yet a bunch of environmental activists are telling people on boats they can’t dump human waste into Puget Sound. I don’t think you should be able to flush toilet paper or products like that into the sound; that should be filtered.

But human waste? Is human waste that different from fish waste? There are probably billions of creatures in our oceans and lakes, and they’re all releasing waste.

Why is it that when government pours a quarter-billion gallons in, it’s no big deal and no one loses their job and the sound cleans itself, but when a tugboat operator wants to empty their tanks as they’ve done for well over 100 years, the sound can’t handle that? I’m just having trouble finding consistency here.

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