Snohomish seems plagued with expensive plumbing problems.
First, fixing the city storm-water system is expected to cost $8 million.
Then, a project to pipe sewage to Everett could cost about $33 million.
Now it turns out there’s one more big bill to worry about.
The city’s aging water treatment plant needs about $3.7 million in upgrades in four to 10 years.
But on that problem, the city has other options.
At the moment, the City Council’s most popular alternative to fixing the plant is to get out of the water treatment business and buy all the city’s water from Everett.
The move, recently proposed to the council, could mean big savings for customers in years to come.
A rate study showed customers in 2033 paying $148 every two months for water from Everett, rather than $298 if the city keeps the plant.
The switch would also allow the city to dismantle a dam that siphons hundreds of gallons of water a minute off the river to the plant. Area sportsman’s associations and the Tulalip Tribes have called for the removal of the dam in the past.
While the switch could mean the city might lose water rights to the Pilchuck River, it also might be able to sell those rights.
The city already pipes about 40 percent of its water from Everett. The rest comes from a water plant miles up the Pilchuck River, said Snohomish Public Works Director Tim Heydon.
The problem with the water plant goes back to a decision to build an inexpensive one in the early ’80s.
As Heydon put it, it wasn’t a “high-end installation.”
“It was something the city could do at a low cost,” he said.
It works fine — when the river runs clear.
Add some heavy rainfall, the river churns and muddy water makes treating the water nearly impossible.
Snohomish’s plant doesn’t have a settling basin, something that aids filtering and that many other plants have. Stirred-up river water also can clog the plant’s filters with muck.
The Department of Health evaluated the plant in 2006 and found it needed upgrades.
The state wanted more stringent monitoring and a faster way to shut down the plant in an emergency. The agency also wanted the water used to clean the filters to be disposed of, rather than letting it wash down the pipes that serve customers.
The city is spending $400,000 to upgrade the plant to meet tougher state requirements.
“The ability to control and monitor the regulations have crept up and surpassed the plant,” said Derek Pell, assistant manager for the Department of Health’s Northwest Office of Drinking Water.
Since 2006, the state has twice dinged the city for drinking water violations. The most recent in January happened after floodwaters damaged a transmission line. About 90 customers were told to boil water to ensure it was safe to drink.
It’s those same 93 customers, located outside city limits in the Machias area, that could have problems if the city decided to shut down the water plant.
These customers tapped into the transmission line that runs from the city’s reservoir to the plant 16 miles up the river. The line was only meant to transport water. In the ’80s the city put a moratorium on more customers tapping into the line.
If the plant did close, those customers could potentially tap into a Snohomish County Public Utility Water line at their own cost, or the city could tap into a PUD meter and serve just those 93 customers, said Brant Wood, a senior manager at the PUD.
The city has set up a meeting to talk with PUD and investigate how it could work together, Heydon said.
This isn’t the first time the city has considered buying all its water from Everett.
In the 1970s, the city had a similar debate when they faced expensive improvements to the plant.
Debra Smith: 425-339-3197, dsmith@heraldnet.com.
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