Drafter
Clerk 02/25/2021
Title
AN ORDINANCE making a net supplemental appropriation of $64,624,124 to the water quality construction fund; and amending the 2021-2022 Biennial Budget Ordinance, Ordinance 19210, Section 129, as amended, and Attachment A, as amended.
Body
PREAMBLE:
King County owns and operates the West Point Treatment Plant that provides wastewater treatment for residents and businesses in: the city of Seattle, including Seattle's combined stormwater/wastewater sewer system; the city of Shoreline; north Lake Washington; and parts of southern Snohomish County.
The King County executive issued an Executive Declaration of Emergency on February 25, 2021, declaring that immediate steps must be taken to improve power reliability at the West Point Treatment Plant.
It is imperative that the West Point Treatment Plant have reliable power, as the largest treatment plant in Washington state based on wastewater volumes treated, to continue to reliably treat higher wastewater flows from a growing population and increased stormwater volumes and to comply with regulatory obligations and prepare for climate change.
There has been an increase in bypass events at the West Point Treatment Plant related to the quality of power delivered at the plant. In the last twenty years, there have been fifteen bypass events that were caused by voltage sags and other power disturbances on the Seattle City Light power feed, with eight of those events occurring in the last five years.
The Washington state Department of Ecology issued Administrative Order 19477 to King County on February 2, 2021, regarding unauthorized bypasses of the secondary treatment system, when stormwater and sewage that has received some treatment is blended with wastewater that has been fully treated and disinfected, at the West Point Treatment Plant between January 1, 2018, and June 30, 2020.
Administrative Order 19477 noted that six of the unanticipated, unauthorized bypasses of the secondary treatmen...
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