EDMONDS – Two new sewer pumps recently installed underneath Sunset Avenue in Edmonds should prevent the occasional overflow of sewage into Puget Sound, city officials said.
“It’s an absolutely vital key to our infrastructure and we had to do something about it,” said Edmonds City Council member Richard Marin, who recently toured the new pump station. “We want to be the best stewards of the resources we have here and protect them.”
The new pumps replace two older and smaller pumps installed more than 40 years ago. When the old pumps would break, or when the city would get heavy rain, untreated wastewater sometimes was released into the Sound.
That didn’t happen often, only once or twice a year during the past 10 years, according to the state Department of Ecology. But overflows sometimes sent thousands of gallons of untreated wastewater into Puget Sound instead of pumping it to the city’s sewage treatment plant at Second Avenue and Dayton Street, according to DOE records.
On Feb. 28, 1999, the pumps failed three times, resulting in an estimated 58,000 gallons of untreated wastewater being released into the sound, according to the state.
Of that, about 3 percent was sewage, according to the Edmonds Department of Public Works. No cleanup was needed.
“The chances of that (overflow) happening now is much slimmer than before,” Edmonds Mayor Gary Haakenson said.
“This is a project that we need to do to keep our infrastructure working for many years to come,” he said. “It’s not something we think about every day. It’s something we assume is going to work.”
The new pumps have a capacity of 1,800 gallons per minute each and pump twice the volume of the old pumps.
The old pumps also had outdated electrical equipment that would sometimes fail. The new pumps were installed with a new system that automatically alerts the city’s Public Works Department if there’s a problem, said Pamela Lemcke, a project manager for Edmonds’ Department of Engineering.
In addition, the new station also has an extra third pump that can be used as a replacement if one of the two working pumps fails.
The $750,000 project began in March and the new pumps were turned on in December. The new pumps were installed beneath Sunset Avenue, in an underground room next to the one that housed the old pumps.
Final construction work should be finished soon, Haakenson said. That should bring some relief to neighbors and those who visit scenic Sunset Avenue.
“We appreciate their patience and we look forward to giving them back their street back,” he said.
Katherine Schiffner is a writer for The Herald in Everett. She can be contacted at 425-339-3436 or by e-mail to schiffner@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
