Fast action by King County wastewater crew stops pump station overflow

2005 Archived News

King County's Woodinville Pump Station experienced its first overflow in more than 10 years Tuesday evening when a small amount of wastewater discharged into the Sammamish River near Northeast 175th Street.

County crews stopped the overflow within six minutes after an electrical surge in the thunderstorm knocked out power about 5:30 p.m. to two main pumps in the pump station. A backup generator and pump came on automatically but were unable to prevent the minor overflow.

When the power surge happened, the pump station was handling a wastewater flow of about 7 million gallons a day. Only about 29,000 gallons of wastewater overflowed from the pump station.

The pump station send flows from the Woodinville, Redmond and Sammamish areas to the West Point Treatment Plant in Seattle. King County treats the wastewater to protect public health and the environment.

King County staff took water quality samples in the river and notified Public Health-King County and Seattle, the state Department of Ecology, Woodinville Public Works and the Woodinville Water District. Lab results of the samples will be available Thursday.

The county's Wastewater Treatment Division serves 17 cities, 17 local sewer agencies and more than 1.4 million residents in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties. Formerly known as Metro, the regional wastewater-treatment utility has been preventing water pollution for 40 years.