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Old 02-22-2019, 11:51 PM   #6
klee wyck
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City: Port Townsend and La Paz
Vessel Name: Domino and Libra
Vessel Model: Malcom Tennant 20M and Noordzee Kotter 52
Join Date: Feb 2014
Posts: 984
Quote:
Originally Posted by sbu22 View Post
Didn't perform their "due diligence" is way to nice. This is not unusual - lots of state/EPA save the planet types get together informally, map out what they want to do, and then after the fix is in, hope to slide it through more or less unnoticed until it's too late. State and federal environmental agencies routinely ignore their own regs and admin procedures if it's advantageous to their "save the planet" mindset or if a "brother" government agency is involved.

The typical municipal POTW (sewage plant) oopses are collossal compared to the marine industry output if they didn't treat their waste. 25-75,000 POTW releases per year with 1-3 billion gallons of raw sewage discharged. The POTW gets a really, really angry letter. Fixes the prob when they get around to it (or not). Usually that means it stopped raining hard.

Try that as a private citizen. Unicorn theory by knuckleheads. Hope AWO is successful, but I've seen this movie before in other venues. Logic many times counts for very little.
Yeah...this.
In one 7 day period in February of 2017, the West Point wet weather sewage and storm water treatment plant dumped 244 million gallons of untreated wastewater into the Sound. To put that into perspective, that is the equivalent of 40,000 rec boats dumping a 50 gallon blackwater tank once per month for ten years. That plant takes care of about 700,000 of the 4 million humans living on the rain soaked hillside that drains into the Sound. Did I say it rains a lot here?


The state Department of Ecology which is a bedfellow of EPAs region ten suggested later that year that the West Point plant invest 1 million to correct its deficiencies. Don't expect that to go far.


I don't think rec boats should dump sewage.
I do, though, think it a bit ridiculous that we tie up agency time creating code for rec boats while we let over burdened, under capitalized, ill equipped for the load, municipal treatment plants let 'er rip every time it rains a little.

Hey, I have another idea....if you cannot pin the impact of the failed POTW on the rec boats, blame some livestock 200 miles from the Sound. That always seems to fly.
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