King County Reaches Settlement on Sewage Dumped in Lake Washington

King County and the City of Seattle have reached a settlement with environmental regulators over the dumping of raw sewage into Lake Washington and other local waterways.

As SeattlePI.com reports, the two agencies will pay $1.46 billion in improvements and $750,000 in fines for the dumping, which took place from 2006 to 2010. During that time, King County dumped 900 million gallons of sewage each year while Seattle contributed an additional 200 million gallons annually, the PI said.

King County issued a news release Tuesday afternoon in praise of the new agreement.

“We are poised to make significant investments in projects that will support the cleanup of both Puget Sound and the Lower Duwamish, and lead to a healthier environment for the people who depend on these waterways for work and recreation,” King County Executive Dow Constantine said in the news release. 

According to the PI, King County is permitted to dump small amounts of sewage when heavy rainfall could lead to flooding that would seep into leaky pipes and overburden the wastewater system. But the U.S. Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency contended the dumping took place even when the weather was dry.

Among the terms of the agreement, King County must set deadlines for new drains to control sewage dumping as well as come up with a plan to regulate wastewater during all weather conditions.

For more, click here to read the Seattle PI story or here to see King County's news release.