Sept. 5, 2008 Brightwater outfall pipeline tow rescheduled for late Sunday morningNote to editors and reporters: To arrange interviews and photo opportunities, please contact Annie Kolb-Nelson at 206-263-6157 or by pager at 206-469-2514.
Construction on the Brightwater Treatment System project’s deep-water marine outfall in Puget Sound is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. on Sunday, Sept. 7.
Boaters in the lower Snohomish River and nearby Puget Sound waters should expect short-term impacts to marine traffic as tugboats tow the first of two mile-long pipelines down the Snohomish River.
The towing operation is scheduled to reach the water way between Jetty Island and the 10th Street Marina in Everett about 12:30 p.m. Larger tugboats will then tow the pipeline through Port Gardener and south to Point Wells near Shoreline, where it is scheduled to arrive late Sunday. Escort boats will be present during the tow to maintain a buffer zone.
Because the work is dependent on weather and tidal conditions, scheduled dates and times are subject to change. People can contact the Brightwater 24-hour construction hotline at 206-205-5989 to request the current schedule.
At Point Wells, workers will first attach both of the floating pipes to a recently constructed on-shore connector and then lower the outfall pipe to the seafloor. Work will continue around the clock at Point Wells until the installation of both outfall pipes is complete.
When Brightwater begins operating in 2011, highly treated wastewater from the state-of-the-art plant will be discharged through the outfall, which will be 600 feet deep and a mile offshore.
The second pipeline is scheduled to begin its trip down the Snohomish River a day later on Sept. 8.
The advanced membrane bioreactor technology at Brightwater will get the wastewater seven to 10 times cleaner than conventional treatment processes, treating nearly all the wastewater there to the state’s highest reclaimed water standards. Reclaimed water from Brightwater will be used for irrigation and industry, reducing the amount of effluent discharged to the outfall and supporting the state’s Puget Sound cleanup strategy.
King County selected the Brightwater outfall location after years of environmental review that included detailed study of Puget Sound oceanography and marine biology as well as an extensive permitting process involving state and federal agencies.
More information about Brightwater is available online at http://dnr.kingcounty.gov/wtd/brightwater/
People enjoy clean water and a healthy environment because of King County's wastewater treatment program. The county’s Wastewater Treatment Division protects public health and water quality by serving 17 cities, 17 local sewer districts and more than 1.4 million residents in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties. Formerly called Metro, the regional clean-water agency now operated by King County has been preventing water pollution for more than 40 years.
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Note to editors and reporters: Visit the WTD Newsroom, a portal to information for the news media about the Wastewater Treatment Division, King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks: http://dnr.metrokc.gov/wtd/newsroom/.
This release is also posted on the Web site for the Department of Natural Resources and Parks at http://dnr.metrokc.gov/.
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