© Emily Eng / The Seattle Times
Millions of gallons of untreated wastewater and stormwater began dumping into Puget Sound Thursday after high tides and heavy rains overwhelmed a King County wastewater-treatment center in Seattle.
Flooding at West Point Treatment Plant in Magnolia's Discovery Park caused damage that apparently fried an electrical circuit and triggered a system shutdown, a spokesman said.
That has caused the county to operate the facility much of Thursday in
"emergency bypass mode" — dumping untreated effluent directly into Puget Sound.Officials were still calculating how much untreated wastewater had flowed into Puget Sound. Doug Williams, a spokesman for the county's Department of Natural Resources and Parks,
estimated more than 150 million to 200 million gallons, with that number likely to grow.By Thursday night, Williams said the plant was partially back on line and was providing initial treatment to some of the water which had been flowing untreated into the Sound or diverted to other treatment plants.
The dumped sewage is a mix of about 90 percent stormwater and 10 percent wastewater, he said.
The county has managed to divert nearly 200 million gallons of sewage water headed for West Point to four other treatment facilities, Williams said.
Chris Wilke, executive director of Puget Soundkeeper, an environmental watchdog group, said the amount of untreated sewage dumped so far comprises about one-fifth of the typical overflow amount for the area's sewers annually.
Comment: The LA Times reports that the 'immediate threat' had passed, water levels were dropping, but the situation was still dangerous and evacuations would continue. 23,000 California National Guard soldiers and airmen have also been ordered to be on alert for an Oroville dam emergency.
Environmental groups in California had warned federal and state agencies of the risk of the spillway's collapse in 2015 citing a need for upgrades. The agencies said at the time that the concerns were overblown.
The Associated Press reports that officials were waiting until dawn today (February 13) to inspect the erosion and that water levels were continuing to drop.
See also: Update: Oroville Dam overtops, government still refuses to order evacuation preparations