If you live in south Snohomish County and you showered, brushed your teeth and, yes, flushed your toilet, you’re probably among the 1.4 million people who sent wastewater into one of King County’s regional plants for treatment this morning. Even if you’re on a septic system, there’s a good chance your waste may end up there when you maintain your system.
Though regional wastewater treatment is taken for granted, its function is crucial for protecting public health, water quality, and the quality of life that makes this area an attractive destination for people and economic investment.
That’s why we need to build another regional treatment plant called Brightwater – to continue protecting our communities and our region’s natural and economic resources over the next several decades. The Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties strongly supports Brightwater to ensure we have the infrastructure in place to sustain and improve the economic health of our region and environmental health of Puget Sound waters and salmon streams.
The Brightwater plant is an attractively designed, state-of-the-art facility. About $140 million will be spent to mitigate impacts and enhance host communities. An additional $65 million has been earmarked for the most advanced odor control system in the United States.
After spending many years approaching the public and involving them in good faith in the project, most people have come to understand the need for Brightwater.
However, there is a small but vocal group of opponents who will never accept the project, no matter how much money the county spends on mitigation and amenities and engineering upgrades.
Why?
Because they want the benefits of wastewater treatment, as long as it’s treated elsewhere. Their idea of a Brightwater alternative is to continue sending their wastewater to Seattle and Renton, as it has been for the past 40 years. But that’s not an option anymore because these two regional plants will reach capacity in just a few years.
The latest tactic opponents are using to try to derail the project focuses on “what ifs” – primarily, what if there’s an earthquake? It’s not an unfounded concern given that the Puget Sound area is prone to seismic activity. However, the very remote risk of a major earthquake over the next 50 or so years is not a valid excuse to avoid building an essential public facility in our growing region that needs it. Especially when the issues raised by opponents have been diligently researched and tested.
Brightwater opponents are entirely justified in demanding that the plant be held to high standards, that it be designed to keep people and property safe in the event of the Big One. But there is a difference between high standards and standards that are impossible to meet. The former builds projects that are good for communities; the latter is obstructionism that results in court challenges and costly delays that we will all eventually end up paying for in our monthly sewer rate.
King County has responded to opponents’ concerns by designing Brightwater to withstand the “what ifs.” Snohomish County is requiring Brightwater to be built to the most stringent seismic standards in the entire state. At this point, there is considerable public and political pressure for King County to honor its commitments to ensure the plant will be a good, and safe, neighbor.
None of this has appeased opponents of Brightwater. They don’t want assurances; they just don’t want the plant, period. That’s an irresponsible and non-negotiable position.
Our region is growing. If we want our children to enjoy healthy waterways, healthy aquatic species and healthy economic growth, we need wastewater treatment infrastructure, which includes all those pipes and plants and pump stations that ironically make it possible for Brightwater opponents to have jobs and homes, to send their kids to school, to go to a shopping mall or a ball game or a grocery store.
I’m not unsympathetic to anyone’s reluctance at welcoming a wastewater treatment plant into their neighborhood with open arms, but like jails and solid waste dumps, these facilities need to go somewhere. It is important that King County be held to its promises and be scrutinized to ensure Brightwater will be a good neighbor, and that the plant delivers the promised environmental and economic benefits to our region. But, we also need to take a hard look at the tactics being used to try and stall or delay this project and decide whether the opponents are acting in our community’s and region’s long-term best interests or just for their own short-term benefit.
Sam Anderson is the executive officer of the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties.
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