Due to the failure of equipment in a sewage treatment plant of Seattle, millions of gallons of sewage have been dumped into the United States second largest estuary. The sewage plant failure is the main reason for the dumping of this raw and untreated sewage.
According to Yahoo News, this failed sewage plant is the Washington's largest sewage treatment plant. Nothing is going well from this plant because it is now only partially treating the sewage water before getting discharged into Puget Sound.
"It has been a disaster, and we're not out of it yet. We still don't know really what went wrong," Jeanne Kohl-Welles, a councilwoman of the district said. Her district contains the 32 acres West Point Treatment Sewage Plant that is located on the coast of Puget Sound, near Seattle's biggest public park.
The Boston Globe reported that since February 9, 2017, some failures in electrical supply to the sewage plant caused damage to the underground network of motors, pumps, gears and electric panels. Crews are already working out resolve the problem as quickly as possible. The sewage plant can get charged with fines for the violation of clean water laws.
The sewage plant spilled around 30 million gallons of raw sewage into the Puget Sound due to this sudden failure in the treatment system. In recent times, no huge sewage treatment plant breakdown has ever occurred, as per reports. The plant needs to be in a fully operational mode to remove the violation charges against it.
Sewage plant failures can happen due to many causes such as hydraulic overload, organic overload, mechanical failure, structural component failure and change of use or introduction of incompatible materials. But in this case of Seattle sewage treatment plant, no specific failure reasons have been found for the initial damage. Being in function, the plant is partially treating the sewage wastes until it starts working properly.
