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June 29, 2020 by Dave Peeler
Way back in the mid to late 1980s, the WA Dept. of Ecology (Ecology) took a bold step: it proposed and then adopted a requirement for enhanced sewage treatment for every sewage treatment plant throughout the state. Under the new requirement, every sewage treatment plant had to meet “secondary wastewater treatment” standards. This was the first general treatment upgrade required since the early 1950’s when “primary treatment” was first required (before the 1950’s no treatment at all was required). And can you guess what happened then? Many local treatment plant operators filed appeals, first to then Governor Gardner and then to the courts, but thankfully all were eventually denied and all treatment plants were eventually upgraded across the state, albeit with very large grant and loan assistance from EPA and Ecology.
Fast forward almost 40 years to 2020: the statewide secondary treatment standards have not been updated even though the state population has increased at a phenomenal rate along with the amount of human sewage produced.
This PDF covers the history, the problem, and the recommendations for updated standards:
