| September 18, 2000
News Release A power surge at the Hidden Lake Pump Station in north King County caused a small sewage overflow into Puget Sound Saturday morning. The sewage went into the Sound through a pipe that is 300 feet from shore just north of Boeing Creek. Water quality samples taken at the site and at nearby parks showed no health risk to people from contamination. The brief overflow is estimated at less than 10,000 gallons and occurred at about 8:20 a.m. after an electrical relay was disabled during a momentary disruption in the electrical current provided to the pump station. The power surge caused the pump to shut down and could not restart because the relay malfunctioned. Crews stopped the overflow within 15 minutes after the West Point Treatment Plant computerized monitoring system showed the pump had stopped. The pump was restarted and the relay switch fixed. The health department and the State Department of Ecology were contacted immediately. A technical crew was dispatched to take water samples to test for contamination at the pipe and at public beaches above and below the outfall site. Laboratory tests show good water quality at all sampling sites. The Hidden Lake Pump Station handles an average of two-to-three million gallons of sewage per day when the weather is dry. Work is planned to increase the storage capacity of sewage at the pump station in the next five years to better manage sewage flows during storms. The Hidden Lake Pump Station handles sewage from Shoreline, Hidden Lake and parts of the Highlands.
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