Sammamish Water District Fights Issaquah’s Attempt to Inject Polluted Stormwater into Drinking Water Supply

The Sammamish Plateau Water and Sewer District has learned that City of Issaquah officials plan to obtain a stormwater discharge permit from the Washington Department of Ecology that will allow the City to inject stormwater runoff contaminated with fecal coliform, heavy metals and other bacteria from the Issaquah Highlands into the ground water that feeds three wells owned and operated by the District.

The District has been attempting to work with Issaquah since 2005 to prevent this contaminated runoff from entering the aquifer, even offering to co-fund a water treatment facility to clean the water to at least drinking water standards before being injected so close to District wells. Issaquah instead filed an application for a permit from Ecology to allow it to inject the stormwater runoff only 600 feet away from the District’s wells that provide drinking water to most of the City of Sammamish and parts of Issaquah and unincorporated King County, including the area known as Klahanie.

After monitoring wells showed high fecal coliform contamination in the aquifer near the injection site, the District convinced Ecology to shut down the Issaquah stormwater injection site in 2008 to protect the drinking water. Since that time, Issaquah has diverted the untreated stormwater to the North Fork of Issaquah Creek, which runs directly into Lake Sammamish.

In 2011, the City examined their options for dealing with the stormwater and the District’s objections to injection into the aquifer. Instead of spending an estimated $1,500,000 on active pre-treatment of the stormwater, Issaquah officials chose to spend the same amount to assume, or take over, parts of the District inside the Issaquah city limits and where three of the District’s primary drinking water wells are located.

Through documents obtained during a public records request, the City has made it clear the true motivation for assumption is to take control of the drinking water wells that are close to the stormwater injection site, eliminating the District’s opposition to the threat to the aquifer and drinking water supply of 54,000 customers.

The Department of Ecology is poised to issue a permit to Issaquah within the next few weeks that will allow the City to resume injecting the contaminated water within feet of or directly into the aquifer. This could be the first time in the State that Ecology permits this process without aggressive pre-treatment. This also runs counter to the State Antidegradation Policy that protects any ground water source of drinking water.

Frustrated by Issaquah’s refusal to collaborate on a solution, or to ratify agreements that had been negotiated in the past, and by the imminent issuance of Issaquah’s stormwater discharge permit from Ecology, the District has no choice but to take these issues into the public domain where citizens most impacted by these decisions can become informed and be heard.

“Our 54,000 customers in Issaquah, Sammamish and unincorporated King County have a right to know what’s going on and understand the threat to their drinking water,” says Jay Krauss, District General Manager. “For years the District has made good-faith efforts to peacefully resolve these issues in the interest of groundwater protection. We’ve even offered to co-fund stormwater treatment. Instead, we’re the target of a takeover to silence our concerns. It’s time to invite the public into the conversation.”

For more information, please go to the following website:  http://www.letstalkaboutourwater.org/