There Was "a Large Sewage Spill" in Lake Washington Wednesday Morning

Comments

Just to put this into perspective, Lake Washington holds about 800 BILLION gallons. Don't go freaking out. The fish in the lake probably poop out more than 12,000 gallons daily.

sperifera on August 26, 2015 at 6:09 PM

It might be worth noting that Lake Washington contains over seven hundred eighty-two. Trillion. Gallons. The spill constitutes 15 parts per billion considering this volume of water. I'd stop hyperventilating.

roddy on August 26, 2015 at 6:19 PM

If this were Rio de Janeiro, it would be a good 20 seconds to only have 12,000 gallons dumped into open water.

Karlheinz Arschbomber on August 26, 2015 at 6:37 PM

I was paddling around on my SUP about 5pm. There were people swimming in Seward Park, boaters pulling inflatables, dogs fetching sticks, other SUPpers and NO beach closed signs! This spill occurred THIS MORNING.

monkeybusiness on August 26, 2015 at 6:48 PM

Isn't there a big CSO construction project going on right there? Could this spill have something to do with that construction?

RDPence on August 26, 2015 at 7:39 PM

That sounds like a lot, but remember that the Army Corps of Engineers estimates the size of Lake Washington at 478 quadrillion gallons (that's quad with a Q, i.e. 4.78e17 or 478,000,000,000,000,000 gallons total), so statistically speaking this is like one drop in the ocean. I mean. Assuming the sewage is thoroughly dispersed.

If it hasn't evenly spread out yet, that would mean it's stronger in some areas. Yikes!

courner on August 26, 2015 at 7:49 PM

They're called combined sewage overflows. Check out the Midwest where cities like Chicago are working to replace them. While it is crazy stupid that the good-old, green-old PNW uses this outmoded way of handling stormwater, everyone else is also correct that there is nothing to be concerned about long-term this time based on volume. Relaaaaax.

seattleeco on August 26, 2015 at 7:56 PM

That sounds like a lot, but keep in mind that the volume of Lake Washington is 756 septillion gallons. That's a quarter of a cubic lightyear. 12,000 gallons is actually less than a drop in a bucket.

dwightmoodyforgetsthings on August 26, 2015 at 8:30 PM

The Ballard Locks flushes something like 203,000,000 gallons, or 20% of the total volume, of Lake Washington every time a ship goes through the Large Lock. Even more gallons if it's one of the big Corellian ships.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn on August 26, 2015 at 8:50 PM

Seattle is for Billionaires Only.

Depopulation Plan #433-2333 US Internal begins

Supreme Ruler Of The Universe on August 26, 2015 at 9:49 PM

They're trying to draw the US Olympic distance swimming team here to train for the 2016 Games in Rio.

Toe Tag on August 26, 2015 at 10:45 PM

@11 - WTF does that even mean?

JBITDMFOTP

sperifera on August 26, 2015 at 11:04 PM

Use some scientific notation, guys. Otherwise, the sheer volume of 7.29 E 27 gallons can be hard to really comprehend, and the spill might seem like more of a drop in a bucket than it is.
This has been a friendly message from your local nerds.

venomlash on August 26, 2015 at 11:06 PM

Here's a map of all the CSOs in Seattle, and which ones happen to be discharging sewage (and rainwater) into the lake and/or sound at any given time:

http://www.kingcounty.gov/environment/wa…

jsera on August 26, 2015 at 11:27 PM

For some extra perspective that people might be able to visualize, 12,000 gallons is less than 2% of the amount of water in an Olympic sized swimming pool. It'll be no big deal once it dissipates.

Lyssa98103 on August 26, 2015 at 11:44 PM

I would like to thank the SLOG commentors for doing the small amount of work that Frizzelle either refuses to, or is incapable of doing.

Theodore Gorath on August 27, 2015 at 5:17 AM

^yup @17.

Thanks Nerds.

JBITDMFOTP

Sandiai on August 27, 2015 at 7:04 AM

Who cares if its a small percentage of the total volume of water? A 12,000 gallon sewage spill at a public swimming beach fucking matters to me, and if you live here it should matter to you, too.

It might be a drop in a bucket, but would you wash your face from a bucket with a drop of poop in it? The apathy/resignation/indifference to a contaminated public environment, no matter how small the scale, is perplexing.

tabski on August 27, 2015 at 7:40 AM

@19: I hate to break it to you, but you are covered in poop molecules right now, as is all the food you eat, the water you drink, and the air you breathe. Look up "fecal coliform."

Also, no one is criticizing Frizzelle for reporting it, the criticism is that he immediately sensationalized the issue and offered no context of any kind. Context which multiple commentors were able to give with a few seconds of Google.

Theodore Gorath on August 27, 2015 at 8:00 AM

I was looking at the results of a focus group a while back, and one of the attendees said she never drinks water in Seattle because wildlife in the watershed poops in the water.

I wonder what she'd make of this.....

Catalina Vel-DuRay on August 27, 2015 at 9:21 AM

wow, the paid pro-sewage trolls are out in force today!

JonnoN on August 27, 2015 at 9:33 AM

Fecal levels are recorded once a week at most King County beaches. They're pretty fucking high already even though "the lake is eleventy sixtillion gallons" so I can't imagine this helps. If closed, the fecal coliform levels are >1000 CFU/100 ml.

http://green2.kingcounty.gov/swimbeach/B…

So, in other words, this is pretty fucking grody. I sure wouldn't swim in the filth that is Lake Washington.

seatownr on August 27, 2015 at 9:41 AM

I love the inflation going on in this thread. Lake WA holds:
@1 800 BILLION gallons
@2 over seven hundred eighty-two. Trillion. Gallons.
@7 478 quadrillion gallons
@9 756 septillion gallons. That's a quarter of a cubic lightyear. (thanks for that @9, you win)

Then @10 goes completely crazy and claims that 20% of the entire lake is emptied out every time the locks open. We need some quality control in this thread.

Matt the Engineer on August 27, 2015 at 9:42 AM

Wikipedia says Lake Washington is 2,400,000 acre·ft, which is 782 billion (7.82e11) U.S. gallons.

cccCody on August 27, 2015 at 9:59 AM

@25 "That's the Joke."

MiddlePerson on August 27, 2015 at 10:15 AM

I see that the commenters are still the only reason to come me to Slog.

JBITDMFOTP

Pridge Wessea on August 27, 2015 at 10:25 AM

@25: You apparently missed when #10 made a reference to the Millenium Falcon.

Or, I suppose just Star Wars spaceship building faciltiies in general.

Theodore Gorath on August 27, 2015 at 10:26 AM

That awkward moment when a stray "me" gets in the way.

Pridge Wessea on August 27, 2015 at 10:26 AM

Yep @17. Lazy writing. C'mon Stranger editors... edit.

Duke Silver on August 27, 2015 at 11:18 AM

@29: "big Corellian ships" refers to the Imperial-class Star Destroyers. Which is funny because the main manufacturer was actually based on Kuat...

venomlash on August 27, 2015 at 11:25 AM

@25- OMG, I meant lightsecond. Clearly a quarter of a cubic lightyear is laughable.

dwightmoodyforgetsthings on August 27, 2015 at 2:38 PM

The great thing about putting 12000 gallons of sewage in lake washington is that due to the huge amount of dilution, the entire lake is now considered homeopathic medicine and will cure any disease you can catch from poop.

beef rallard on August 27, 2015 at 3:39 PM

OK, so maybe I don't have *precise* figures at my fingertips. Maybe I've never actually seen them lock one of the Corellian ships in Ballard. The big ones anyway.

At least we agree that the larger the ship goes through the lock, the more water gets flushed out of Lake Washington? Right?

Or not. Anyway, one thing we know there's but one way that poop leaves Lake Washington and that way is through Ballard.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn on August 27, 2015 at 7:52 PM

Frizelle's ranting is a classic reason to not read the Stranger. No journalism, just stoned panic. That was one awful article, if we can call it that.

Why would people prefer The Stranger to Crosscut, the Times, the P-I, the Weekly, the Daily, or the West Seattle Herald?

trob on August 27, 2015 at 11:36 PM

@35: "At least we agree that the larger the ship goes through the lock, the more water gets flushed out of Lake Washington? Right?"

No, I don't think we can agree on that. Takes less water to fill a bathtub for a fat man.

beef rallard on August 28, 2015 at 12:15 AM

@37

The locks don't work like a bathtub. Haven't you been paying attention? They work like a toilet bowl. QED.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn on August 28, 2015 at 1:46 PM

@38 your mom works like a toilet bowl

beef rallard on August 29, 2015 at 1:48 AM

@35 The slog is a rich hunting ground for trolling, nicht wahr?
@37 agreed - displacement - Archimedes' principle.

We have much more of a problem with other sources of fecal coliform, i.e. the Canada geese feasting on the grass in our parks and irrigated waterfront homes. I did water sampling at Meydenbauer Beach Park; when the bacteria exceeded a threshold the beach was closed.

Lake WA was the water source for several local water districts, and the receiving water for sewer district discharges. In Whaler’s Cove of Meydenbauer Bay, the fresh-water intake for King County Water District No. 68 was relatively close to the Meydenbauer sewage treatment plant, which stopped discharging to Lake Washington in 1965.

Thus the slogan from an earlier era, “Dilution is the solution to pollution”

Abdul Alhazred on September 3, 2015 at 10:33 AM

There Was "a Large Sewage Spill" in Lake Washington Wednesday Morning

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