Onalasak Sewer Hookups

No new sewer hookups will be allowed at Onalaska

OLYMPIA - As a measure to protect water quality for residents in the Upper Chehalis Basin community of Onalaska, the state Department of Ecology has placed a moratorium on new hookups to Lewis County Water District #2, the Onalaska sewer service.

"The district's wastewater treatment system is beyond its design capacity and, with no immediate source of money to make improvements, this moratorium was our best choice to safeguard the Newaukum River," said Kathleen Emmett, a water quality specialist at Ecology. "Unfortunately, this means that the community simply cannot accept any new growth until improvements are made to the sewer system."

Ecology's Aug. 18 administrative order calling for the moratorium also requires that back-up power to the plant be fully operational by Sept. 1, 1998, and that dechlorination be added to the system by May 1, 1999.

Onalaska's current wastewater treatment plant is an oxidation ditch that was constructed in 1976. The plant has no back-up equipment and it has experienced equipment failure during peak sewer and river flows.

In reviewing of the plant's discharge-monitoring reports, Ecology found the treatment system's 80,000-gallon-per-day capacity to be periodically overloaded by as much as 100,000 gallons per day during peak sewer and river flows. The plant also discharges excessive suspended solids during peak periods of high flows.

Because Lewis County Water District #2 has made electrical, operational and laboratory equipment improvements to its sewer system, Ecology recently reduced a water-quality violation penalty to the district from $3,000 to $500. The penalty was the result of water samples taken in 1997 that grossly failed to meet state water-quality standards. The samples were collected from the plant's final effluent as well as 100 feet upstream and downstream of the Onalaska outfall pipe in the Newaukum River.

"We were impressed with the quick improvements they made to a sewer system in dire need of upgrading. We reduced the penalty because they proved they were making strides in the right direction, but they still have a ways to go," Emmett said.