A document prepared for the city of Issaquah indicates that the city has been considering assuming water and sewer services provided by the Sammamish Plateau Water and Sewer District to customers within Issaquah’s borders for some time.
The Oct. 2011 document, simply titled “The White Paper Analysis of Operating Options,” was prepared by an unnamed consultant. It passed through the hands of Dan Ervin of RH2 Engineering, a consultant to the city, Sheldon Lynne and Kerry Ritland with the city of Issaquah’s public works engineering department, and Keith Niven the city’s economic development director.
“We have two utilities, water and sewer,” said Lynne, the director of public works. “We have the expertise, knowledge and the skills — and we have a bigger picture focus on land use and need than the district does. If the city believes it’s in the best interest of its citizens — there’s no reason the district should fight that type of analysis.”
The district serves 54,000 customers, and has been a special purpose district, meaning that is its sole duty, to provide water and sewer, since 1948. Lynne said that the state’s Growth Management Act encourages cities to be the preferred provider for urban services.
The cost for the city to assume the water district’s service in Issaquah is estimated to cost $1.5 million according to the white paper analysis — the same amount as installing an active water treatment system.
Issaquah and the water district are at odds over the city’s plans to inject storm water into the ground. Called the Lower Reid Infiltration Gallery (LRIG), it is the length of a football field, downhill from the Issaquah Highlands, and just 600-feet from the water district’s well number nine, one of three wells that provides drinking water to the district’s customers. The three wells are within Issaquah’s borders, but the district considers them a regional resource.
Infiltration is legal and is widely practiced in Eastern Washington. However the practice in Issaquah has been shut down since 2008 when fecal coliform was detected in nearby monitoring wells. The city has been diverting the storm water into the North Fork of Issaquah Creek, which flows into Lake Sammamish.
Lynne said the city stopped the infiltration process because the district filed an appeal on the city’s storm water permit. The city stopped operating the facility and have been monitoring it for five years.
“Now we’ve gone to ecology and said here’s the data,” Lynne said.
He added that the infiltration system is a state-of-the-art facility and that data is collected on any and all contaminants.
The district’s board of commissioners opposes any unilateral action that relates to the infiltration gallery and to the potential contamination of the aquifer which sits below it.
The city’s assumption study, currently on its web site, states that if the district cooperates, the cost of the assumption would be $2,015,000. If it is an “adversarial approach,” or a hostile takeover, the cost balloons to $12,500,000.
“They’ve been consciously taking this path for quite some time,” said Connie Marsh, a long-time Issaquah resident and business owner who is familiar with the white paper analysis.
Marsh said it is not the most cost effective route for the city to take.
In addition to the white paper, there are a string of emails on the topic beginning in Oct. of 2011 starting with one from Ervin to Niven. Ervin states “attached is a draft copy of the white paper detailing alternatives for resuming infiltration at the LRIG.”
The next email is from Ritland with Issaquah’s public works, to Lynne, Niven and Ervin saying “Looks good to me! What’s next? Meeting w/Mayor’s office?”
An Oct. 20, 2011 email from Irma Dore with Port Blakely, the developer of the Issaquah Highlands, to Niven, asks him for a copy of the infiltration gallery alternatives that were sent to the mayor’s office.
Port Blakely was warned as early as 1999 to pay more attention to its storm water control systems due to concerns that runoff could be dirtying Issaquah Creek and threatening the city’s water supply.
Former city council member Hank Thomas said what the city says behind closed doors is different that what its constituents are told. He said the Issaquah Highlands was supposed to mimic the pre-development conditions as it relates to infiltration.
“I never found where they measured pre-development conditions (of the soil),” Thomas said. “All they knew was that water infiltrates. They had no good geological maps.”
However, Lynne said geological studies were reviewed by the city and the district, and that they all sat at the same table and agreed it was a good plan.
Thomas said the city pushed so much water into the ground from the Highlands that it blew out Camp Creek Hill in 2004 (just south of Swedish Hospital), and created a mudslide that closed the westbound ramp of I-90 at the Sunset Way interchange. Camp Creek is an underground stream that flows into the east and north fork of Issaquah Creek. Thomas said he walked the hill before it let go and water oozed out of the ground.
“They had plenty of reasons to know infiltration wasn’t going to work, but they were committed to the development,” Thomas said.
With the knowledge that the city had to do something else with surface water from the Highlands, and the majority of the development already platted, they created the Upper Reid Pond, a bioswale, which Thomas describes as a big hole in the ground to capture surface water. He said it’s so big, the city had to get certification to treat it as a dam. The overflow would go into a pipe and be directed to the infiltration gallery.
“All they knew was water went into the ground and you’ll never see it again,” Thomas said. “Within one month it already exceeded capacity.”
Well number nine started showing contamination after the city started using the infiltration gallery, Thomas continued. He said the city wasn’t concerned because it’s a supplemental well only to be used in the wet season. The district pumps water from well nine in the winter to charge the aquifer on the plateau — but the big difference is that the water is potable, or drinkable.
“With rain like we’ve had now, Issaquah’s storm water is not potable water,” he said, citing motor oil that comes from cars, animal feces and numerous other contaminants that would be pushed into the infiltration gallery should it operate again.
“If the infrastructure of (the water district) could be taken over by Issaquah, they would shut down and dismantle well number nine,” Thomas said. “Then you have no evidence of contamination. That’s the motivation.”
But Lynne said the reality is, the facility has to be operated by a permit from ecology, which is in the works now. He said the city has nothing to hide.
“We will have to continue monitoring,” Lynne said. “Fecal coliform is an indicator of other kinds of coliform. What goes unsaid is that water has to be chlorinated. Well nine is 600-feet horizontal and 200-feet deep. It takes less than that to cleanse the water. (There is) a high degree of effectiveness within 30-feet,” he said. “The coliforms were extremely high and went down substantially.”
He said the infiltration gallery is not the reason for the assumption.
“The rates for the average customers would go down. Service would be better. Permits would come from one place. Time and money is a factor, and opinions vary on the facility,” Lynne said. “If the district is willing to work with the city this could work out very well.”
