HEADLINE from the Daily News last year: “Port Angeles Harbor polluted with 8 million gallons of raw sewage, storm water.”

Back in 2113 PORT ANGELES — The public was been warned to avoid contact with Port Angeles Harbor for the next seven days after heavy rains forced about 8 million gallons of storm water and raw sewage into the harbor.

This may well be the future for the proposed merger of Carlsborg sewage to the Sequim Treatment plant. Bob Martin the Public Works director for the county suggested the advantage for the Sequim connection being; if it failed the sewage might be diverted into the straits. Lovely. Mind you comparing the two systems is impossible. P.A. combines storm water with the sewage lines and Sequim does not.  Major rain events would not affect the Sequim plant.

Not stated was that if Carlsborg had its OWN sewage plant it would not contribute to that load or potential failure. A sewage facility could have been built with back up tanks and a secondary septic system to handle overloads.  Somehow, contributing sewage to a septic system that might contaminate groundwater is deemed worse than pumping it into Sequim Bay.

Nor mentioned, was that in 2012 the County and the PUD Planners in the Clallam County Department of Community Development reviewed a draft sewer facilities plan, which somehow got derailed before being submitted to the state Department of Ecology for approval. What happened? BTW – read on, I was totally wrong about what had been planned.

The water treatment facility and percolation basin was to have been built near Runnion and Carlsborg roads. This treated Class A water would have been filtered from a percolation basin and discharged into basin into Matriotti Creek to recharge the aquifer.  Hey doesn’t that sound like a liquid discharge potential in a catastrophe as well?  Be it an earthquake or major flooding accidents may occur. Somehow I prefer two smaller catastrophe’s than one mega one. The pressurized sewage pipe over the Dungeness River is an unneeded risk factor.

The State funded over 10 Million dollars in a loan was to help pay for a new sewer system in Carlsborg. In 2013 the county took over the loan because plans for the system have shifted since the first PUD concept of a sewer for Carlsborg. Instead of the PUD building and doing the billing for the sewer, the county will now take over construction and operation.

With the Counties (and CDC’s) history for building blunders this new melding is being fast tracked to pressure pump the sewage uphill to Sequim’s waste water collection basin on Grant Rd. The pumped sewage would of course need to cross the Dungeness River and in a massive flood or earthquake this riparian discharge alternative may become a quick reality I rather doubt that Sequim Public Works would swim across the river to turn off the valves…

”The county must put in a sewer system in order to satisfy state regulators who had banned development due to density and potential failure of septic systems in the area.”

What is NOT mentioned is that Parkwood and the other mobile home parks who contribute the most nitrates in old septic fields are exempt from hooking up. When you buy into one of these places you cannot even get a septic inspection clause from your realtor as with most home sales. You see you are on a shared system and it is these places that contribute the most septic pollution to the Carlsborg water table. The sewer in either location will not mitigate these contaminators.  So much for the DOE and URG non-compliance crap.

Worse yet the CCAC, Carlsborg Community Advisory Council is considering massive re-zones to one area that would be another Parkwood in density. In all fairness, it will have to be hooked up to the sewer. Not addressed is the Port Commissions responsibly for the Carlsborg Industrial Park. Nitrates are not the only problem for our wells, but so are perchlorate s, heavy metals and Phenols that may being added to the ground water by the commercial businesses located there.

Heck, perchlorate contamination affects streams, ponds and wells and can come from Fireworks as well. The answer is to dig deeper wells or hook up to the PUD.  As did some Carlsborg residents, I also expected to see the CDC director Sheila Roark Miller to be there and some of District 1’s planning commissioners. Fast tracking this issue while a Commissioner and a CDC director is up for election seems to be the wrong way to go.

Horrible job, but someone needs to do it.

A few financial questions? Do your own!

In order to entice more residents to connect to the public sewer system sooner rather than later, county officials plan to offer a reduced connection rate of $500 for the first two years.
The actual Carlsborg population that MIGHT hook is some 1000 persons, or is it? About half that population lives in Mobil home parks that do NOT need to and probably will NOT hook up.
That said I will account for 1000 hook-ups as the Industrial parcels which includes PORT RESPONSIBILITY might hook up. So at a projected payment to Sequim for a penny a gallon we get some 250 gallons at .01 cents 2.5 times 1,000 customers. 2500 a day times 30 is 75.00. So the 60-70 dollar monthly fee works out.

Now Sequim will want that money. Since we have a 1,000 customers that would be 75,000 a month. x 12 so Sequim’s take home might be the 900,000 a yr. Now the County is going to connect this infrastructure for 500 dollars per customer, meaning they will get a GROSS income of 500,000 for the next two years, ballooning up to 7,500 for new hookups. Why would you wait? They might get a few new hookups when the area is re-zoned, hence the urgent plan to re-zone Carlsborg.
Now out of those Gross revenues of 500,000 you might well need 5 employees to watch the pumping station and monitor the sewer lines. How about the staff to send out the bills? Insurance and later upkeep? Employees alone will eat up half that cash.

What really ticks me off is that the worst polluters the mobile home parks will not have to hook-up, so the DOE concerns may not be addressed in a meaningful manner. These old septic systems will continue to discharge nitrates no matter which version had been built.

Pass this on!
I sure hope they keep some revenue from those loans, as they will need them it to cover costs.