Getting results

Completion of the major sewage-treatment facilities brought dramatic results. Effluent, which at one time entered Lake Washington at 20 million gallons a day, was reduced to zero discharge in February 1968. The lake transparency, as low as 30 inches in 1964, was 10 feet by 1968.

The five grown children of Robert and Dorothy Block gather on the shore of Lake Washington to recreate a 1958 Metro campaign photo. Robert and Dorothy Block co-chaired the citizen committee effort. Above photo taken in 1988

By 1977, Lake Washington was clearer than ever before in its recorded history.

Water quality elsewhere along Seattle's waterfront also improved dramatically. In 1970, after the city closed its Diagonal Avenue Treatment Plant and Metro completed its Elliott Bay interceptor sewer, dissolved-oxygen levels in the Duwamish Waterway estuary soared from a low of three-tenths of a milligram per liter to more than 4 milligrams per liter. The result: a healthier environment for marine life.

The Elliott Bay interceptor sewer system made Seattle's commercial waterfront one of the cleanest in the world. Underwater surveys and lab analysis of water samples from West Point showed similar improvements after new plant ended the flow of raw sewage onto the beach.

The Metro Council adopted plans for the second stage of the construction program in 1970. This part of the plan called for changes and additions needed to meet water quality requirements of regulatory agencies, enlargement of facilities, and expansion to provide service to new areas.

Following Metro's success in improving water quality, the state Legislature in 1971 passed a citizen-sponsored bill allowing Metro to levy a 0.3 percent addition to the sales tax to pay for public transit if local citizens approved. The Legislature had earlier authorized a local motor-vehicle excise tax to pay for public transportation systems in communities that also levied local matching taxes for transit.

In September 1972, voters authorized-with a 58 percent vote-a Metro-operated countywide public transit system and the levy of an additional sales tax. Every legislative district in the county voted for that historic step.

South Treatment Plant Renton, Washington (Photo taken in 2002)

In 1985, Metro finished a major expansion of its Renton plant (now called the South Treatment Plant), doubling the plants capacity to 72 millions gallons a day.

Metro also finished a 12-mile underground pipeline in 1987 designed to protect the Duwamish Waterway. Treated wastewater from the Renton plant was diverted from the Duwamish to this pipeline for discharge into Puget Sound off Duwamish Head. That diversion almost eliminated ammonia in the river, and oxygen levels in the river improved significantly.

The American Consulting Engineers' Council gave its Award of Engineering Excellence to Metro in 1987 for engineering design of the Renton effluent transfer system.

Another major construction project ended in 1987 when Metro opened its state-of-the-art Environmental Laboratory on the Lake Washington Ship Canal. Now operated by the Water and Land Resources Division in King County's Department of Natural Resources and Parks, the lab monitors and analyzes environmental data for use in the regional, comprehensive water quality plans.

In 1989, Metro earned the American Public Works Association designation for a Project of Historical Significance for cleanup of Lake Washington, 1959-1989.