UPDATE: This was originally posted on Wednesday, August 26, but I'm bumping it up because the city has just alerted us "Swimming beach will remain closed at least until Friday afternoon." Shit!
I don't know what you're talking about, Heidi. The people with shitty jobs at City Hall are working today. They don't give a crap about the primary or the council races. They're up to their eyeballs in another problem.
According to a 5:02 pm news alert from Seattle Public Utilities:
Seattle’s Seward Park swimming beach has been ordered closed following a large sewage spill Wednesday morning into Lake Washington.
Seattle Parks and Recreation (Parks) and Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) made the decision to close the park as a precaution based on the estimated size of the spill, about 12,000 gallons. The park will remain closed at least until test results are back from the lab, Thursday afternoon.
Parks and SPU are posting signs in the affected areas.
The cause of the spill, from an underground sewage storage tank, is under investigation.
Couple things:
1) Twelve. Thousand. Gallons.
2) "Affected areas"? Isn't it... like, a body of water? Moves around? Is fluid? Fish swim through it, bringing particles hither and thither? Boats, people, ducks? It's not a cubicle, it's a lake. I called up Seattle Public Utilities, and Andy Ryan, who knows a lot more about this shit than I do, answered the phone and was happy to take questions and told me all sorts of crap I didn't know. He said the alert is confined to the "areas on either side of where the spill is."
3) When I gave him my fish example, he said, "That's not how this works. The way that this stuff improves is that it dissipates. What will happen with this is the wind will blow it around in the lake and it will dissipate and it won't be noticeable."
4) He said more things (about fecal coloforms, combined sewer systems, overflow catchment tanks) but I couldn't concentrate because I was thinking about the wind blowing around 12,000 gallons of sewage so "it won't be noticeable."
5) So there's a sewage pipe right near the lake? "It's a large pipe basically that collects excess sewage during a storm," he confirmed. Asked about where exactly this pipe is, he clarified, "It's just a big tank that catches excess sewage and storm water until a big storm and holds it until the system can handle it." Or, you know, just accidentally releases it all into the lake when it decides it can't hold it anymore.
6) It hasn't rained lately, as Ryan acknowledged. "It hasn't rained, there isn't any storm water, so I think we just think it was sewage."
7) How do they know there were 12,000 gallons? "I'm not exactly sure how they calculate that, what kind of meters they have."
8) We also haven't had any earthquakes today, so do they know what caused this rupture that led to 12,000 gallons of sewage just hanging out in Lake Washington until the wind blows it around enough that swimmers won't notice? "I don't know exactly what caused it. We're investigating it. Most likely there was some kind of mechanical issue with a valve."
If you need me I'm busy forwarding this Slog post to everyone who's invited me to swim in Lake Washington lately.
