Blake Island's wastewater system ripe for change

With its towering cedars and quiet beaches, Blake Island State Park is a nature lover's paradise and tourist magnet -- drawing about 150,000 visitors a year.

OUR TROUBLED SOUND

To read the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's special report on the environmental damage the human population is inflicting on Puget Sound.

It's also one of Puget Sound's most notorious environmental culprits.

The park's wastewater-treatment plant has frequently run afoul of its operating permit, releasing into the waters a short boat ride from West Seattle poorly treated sewage that's sometimes loaded with bacteria.

Shellfish beds on the publicly owned island's seemingly pristine beaches have been hammered by pollution flowing from the plant. Today, they're once again off-limits to clam diggers and oyster hunters.

There have been a staggering 230 discharge violations over the past five years, despite a sizable investment by the state Parks and Recreation Commission: $220,000 worth of upgrades to the plant.

Another state agency, the Ecology Department, has been patiently working with plant operators to stem the pollution. But the violations kept piling up.

Deciding enough was enough, an environmental watchdog group stepped in last summer, filing a notice of intent to sue Parks and Recreation.

"This is a state park, and they're fouling their nest," said Sue Joerger, director of the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance.

The hard-line strategy worked.

In the next few weeks, Parks and Recreation officials are expected to sign an agreement with Soundkeeper that calls for building a new treatment system on the mile-wide island.

It'll cost taxpayers roughly $300,000 more, but officials say it's the only way to solve the problem. Wastewater will no longer be treated and released, but contained instead in a large underground septic system.

It appears to be the first time that legal action under the federal Clean Water Act has caused a permitted wastewater discharger to stop dumping into the Sound, Joerger said.

This will be a "precedent-setting solution," she said. "It's really going to be a positive win-win."

And it's not the group's only victory. In the past year and a half, Soundkeeper has taken similar action -- prompting a number of polluting treatment plants to clean up their acts, including the cities of North Bend and Snohomish, Rosario Resort on Orcas Island, and a small public facility on Lopez Island.

Ecology officials were aware of problems at all of the sites, but the department generally prefers training and technical assistance to fines and lawsuits. When it comes to correcting the problems, "it's usually an issue of money. Some entities are very, very strapped for funds," said Ecology's Dave Nunnallee, a water-quality program supervisor.

But as the violations racked up, Joerger's group lost patience with Ecology.

"As long as a permit holder is sort of making progress toward addressing the issue, time doesn't appear to be of the essence," she complained. "Everyone gets to be pretty comfortable with a snail's pace."

When Soundkeeper sends a 60-day notice that a violator will be sued under the Clean Water Act, Joerger said, "it gets everybody to the table really quickly." The notice to Parks and Recreation about the Blake Island problem was sent in July 2003.

In September 2001, Ecology tried to get tough, fining Parks and Recreation $10,000 for operating with an expired pollution permit. But as recently as December 2003 -- the most recent records available -- the plant again exceeded limits for solids and contaminants that can rob the water of oxygen needed by marine life. Last summer, fecal coliform levels in wastewater leaving the plant were 50 times higher than allowed, records show.

The plant, built about 30 years ago, uses a lagoon system for handling waste from restrooms, boats pumping out their holding tanks and Tillicum Village, which offers tourists salmon dinners and Native American entertainment. [Note: This paragraph has been updated since it was originally published]

But the labor-intensive lagoon system didn't operate as designed. Rainwater diluted the waste, making it difficult to remove 85 percent of the solid material as required. In cooler months, volumes were low and the system slowed down, allowing algae and bacteria to grow.


		Paul Joseph Brown / P-I
	Tom Sparks is the project manager for Blake Island State Park's new septic system, which will replace the park's sewage lagoons at left.

"It sits there so long and molders," said Tom Sparks, a Parks and Recreation engineer.

To solve the problem, a septic system is going to be built on the island at a cost estimated at $260,000 to $360,000. The lagoons will be drained and large holding tanks constructed in their place. Then the sewage will be piped to an underground drainage field.

The project will be able to take advantage of some of the improvements made trying to get the lagoon system to work, such as new sewage pipes. If the departments of Health and Fish and Wildlife approve the plans, construction could start in a couple of months.

Under the agreement with Soundkeeper, the project must be completed by Oct. 31.

In its Clean Water Act cases, Soundkeeper doesn't collect damages but is compensated for attorney fees. The group may seek penalties to help offset environmental damage.

While Ecology officials acknowledge the alliance has had success in cracking down on polluters, they insist that the agency is doing its job.

"I feel that we accomplish a huge amount that goes unnoticed," Nunnallee said. "We're not in competition. We're not in a race with them."

P-I reporter Lisa Stiffler can be reached at 206-448-8042 or lisastiffler@seattlepi.com

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