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January 25, 1999 Contact: Secondary Treatment Neutralizes Illegally Dumped Chemicals Investigators ask the public's help Laboratory tests show a huge amount of illegally dumped industrial chemicals moved through King County's East Treatment Plant in Renton Friday, however the secondary treatment process protected the water quality of Puget Sound. The chemicals created an offensive "catbox" odor and produced dangerously high pH levels in the wastewater that jeopardized the secondary sewage treatment for all of east and south King County. The odor prompted widespread complaints from people living and working in the area. This is the sixth and most significant case of a foul catbox odor and illegally dumped chemicals detected at the Renton Treatment Plant since last November. King County's Industrial Waste investigators are asking the public's help in finding who is dumping the chemicals into the sewage system. Companies are required to have a disposal permit and an environmentally safe process for disposing of industrial waste. Anyone with information about dumping of chemicals should call 206-689-3000. King County's Environmental Laboratory reports samples taken Friday contain a petroleum base and several solvents used in industrial cleaning. Chemists describe the illegally dumped material as a chemical soup that included an estimated 1,000 pounds of ammonia, 400 pounds of acetone and numerous other chemicals. "This illegal dumping is following a pattern," said Don Theiler, manager of King County's Wastewater Treatment Division. "It arrived at the plant in early morning which means it may be part of a maintenance or cleaning activity. "Last week's episode was much larger than those in the past and while it caused a lot of discomfort to people living and working in the area, it gave us important evidence that will help us track the company responsible for this." People living and working in the area of the treatment plant called local fire departments and the Puget Sound Pollution Control Agency, Puget Sound Energy and the Renton treatment plant complaining of the odor. The powerful odor was first detected at approximately 4:30 a.m. Friday at the same time monitoring equipment recorded a dramatic increase in the pH level of wastewater flowing into the plant. The plant's normal pH of seven spiked to nine for over two hours. Nine is the maximum pH level allowed on the plant's pollutant discharge permit from the state Department of Ecology. The federal Clean Water Act requires that wastewater receive secondary treatment before discharge into Puget Sound. The outfall from Renton is 600 feet deep and one-and-a-half miles north of Duwamish Head. The East Treatment Plant secondary treatment processes uses 20 million gallons of biomass that metabolize and biodegrade the organic compounds in wastewater each day. The organisms process approximately 82 million gallons of wastewater each day at Renton and help remove over 90 percent of the pollutants from wastewater. If the pH had reached nine-point-five, some or all of the biomass would have died. It could have taken up to a month before the organisms had reproduced and been able to treat the wastewater to levels required on the permit. |
Updated: January 25, 1999