It seems that city staff have become concerned about surface water leakage from our stormwater runoff system, into the groundwater aquifer layer where we get our drinking water. So they want to have mostly SE Redmond industrial businesses spend big bucks (through a new permitting process) to treat their stormwater runoff before it gets carried away into the runoff system. According to business leaders, the overall cost could amount to $4-8 million
The affected businesses (known as "TAG") are fighting this and hired an outside expert to put forth a case arguing against a serious runoff pollution problem.
I found it quite interesting, and most of the councilmembers wanted to know more about potential dangers. They mostly struck me as smart, reasonable persons.
Today I learned of the existence of the Washington Stormwater Center (http://www.wastormwatercenter.org/ Evidently it was mandated last year by the state legislature.. A press release said that the Boeing Corp. very recently donated $85K to the Center, to help it aid small businesses in complying with new state stormwater permitting requirements.
I guess this stormwater runoff issue is a whole lot more serious and complicated than I thought!
By John Reinke
Education Hill, Redmond.
Yes! Protect our fragile water table. The health of our families depend on it!
ReplyDeleteI agree, Brian. The city carefully monitors our five wellheads and they report Wellhead #5 Zone now has higher levels of arsenic and iron. The city has gone out of their way to incent SE Redmond industries to upgrade their stormwater systems to "standard" -- even paying they $4K to $6K if they complete upgrades by a drop-dead date. ~14 businesses continue to swing their weight (probably Cadman, Olympia Predcast, AWR and other pollutors)and have rejected the city's offers. Now, it looks like the city will have to pay for an "independent" consultant when we already have quality experts in Natural Resources. Lot's of politics with Watson Asphalt supplying the city streets, AWR taking stuff nobody wants, Cadman in existence before the city was even founded - Council has historically been highly influenced by these heavy-weights. Staff say each citizen in Redmond drinks about 42 gallons of ground water a year!
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