Title
AN ORDINANCE providing for posting and notification of system metrics, including process disruptions, associated with the regional wastewater treatment system.
Body
STATEMENT OF FACTS:
1. The regional water quality committee and the King County council are charged with the responsibility for oversight and policy review for the regional wastewater treatment system.
2. The West Point Treatment Plant, which is the flagship of the region's wastewater system, experienced a major system failure in the early morning of February 9, 2017, with the result that the plant was inundated by major internal flooding and that the emergency bypass discharge was activated, resulting in the release of high volumes of untreated, combined flows of wastewater and stormwater directly into Puget Sound.
3. A number of factors, including electrical power disruptions, original technology, emergency response procedures, high wastewater/stormwater flow volumes and other elements have been discussed as potentially contributing to the system failure.
4. The regional water quality committee and the council require a continuing and strengthened understanding of system operations indicators in order to assess operational patterns, evaluate system performance dynamics and stresses, become alert to approaching challenges and overview the system as a whole.
5. The committee and the council have need for a means to relate system process volumes to facility capacity constraints.
6. The county's solid waste division provides an example of a county utility monitored by the council that produces monthly system metrics as a system oversight tool accessible to the council.
7. Among the wastewater metrics needed are: total and peak flow volumes managed at key points in the system; sediment, water quality and effluent monitoring data; power disruption events and flow backup events; biosolids produced and distributed; energy utilized; wastewater rate and capacity charge revenue information; comb...

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