Dear Dept. of Ecology,

After reading a poorly written Daily News Article and hearing Sequim licking its lips at the prospect of $$$, I grew concerned and sent this note to the County public works.

1. Daily news article “Waste water would be fed by gravity through pipes and across the Dungeness
River, likely under the U.S. Highway 101 bridge. It would then continue east until hooking into the city’s sewer main at Grant Road.

That doesn’t quite work as Carlsberg is some 28 feet lower than Grant St. So a pressurized line would need to be built. OR??? I had not realized that Carlsborg went across the highway. So perhaps a pump station and holding tank at the Southern end of Carlsborg would work.  I do trust that a holding tank, and even a lower backup tank would be built if power failed.

2. The issue of crossing the Dungeness River. What happens if a catastrophic flood occurs? And many scientists are predicting this to occur more often due to climate change and less buffering by a reduced snow pack.

3. The sewer pipe would have similar issues if we suffer a major earthquake. With power out, a broken line would feed into the river and unless you have manual valves to slowly shut the line down this would be an issue.

I would appreciate your answers to this.  ​

I also attended the City Council meeting and they were already licking their lips about the money that would come in.

Personally, I think That Carlsborg should make their own waste management site, like Sunland did … but hey, no-one wants the smell! (Not if done properly.  Please review all the safety issues regarding a sewer line crossing a major river.

A few Follow ups: — and I have been put on the SEPA review mailing.

The City Administrator wrote back

“….for ecological reasons ( according to the water experts) it is more beneficial to the valley-wide water table to join in Sequim’s water reclamation effort on the east side of the river than to just let the reclaimed water from Carlsborg percolate into the ground at the north end of the Carlsborg road area.“

No! All hydrology studies show that the area EAST of the Dungeness River will be needing more recharge capacity.

2. Finally I am totally pissed off with DOE and all the agencies that have checked off “public hearings” on this issue when all that exists is a 410 .pdf (all day download) of a DRAFT proposal. Somehow, I remember that projects like this would have to have copies at the Library or at the county public works and that they would have to be FINAL project proposals.

As I see it, no allowance has been made for catastrophic floods undermining the foundations of the bridge or earthquake issues. Somehow, I doubt maintenance workers would swim across a flooded river to turn off the manual valves.  Did the DCD (Community Development) ever get involved?

As the public works person Bob Martin – he was a great speaker and I respect him for the bullshit that he and most others who serve the county put out. Less so the Commissioners and City Councils who just breath in the smell of money, be it sewage or incinerator plants. Hey, who cares what the public wants.

Nowhere in the .pdf outline did I see answers to the above concerns. I implore you to consider that Carlsborg develop its own system and utilize the cleaned water to restore its diminishing aquifer.

I FINALLY got the hard copy and presented a copy to the library. 500 pages!!! Informed public input? Hard to do when the physical plans arrive after the decisions have already been made.

(C) Herb Senft 2114

(EDIT)  I posted both of these articles to the POC and neither were printed.