UpdatedWed, Jan 13, 2021 at 10:10 pm PT
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(Shutterstock/Neil Mitchell)
SEATTLE, WA Power outages from Wednesday s storm sent millions of gallons of untreated sewage and stormwater flowing into Puget Sound and Lake Washington, according to the King County Wastewater Treatment Division.
In a news release published Wednesday night, officials said a series of voltage fluctuations at the West Point Treatment Plant in Seattle caused several of the facility s pumping stations to shut down between midnight and 2 a.m. Heavy rain lent to additional overflows at pump stations in Medina and Richmond Beach. The emergency caused an estimated 11 million gallons to overflow without treatment into Puget Sound. Approximately 80% was stormwater and 20% was sewage. Large volumes of rainfall throughout the day and into the night exceeded the capacity of the Richmond Beach pump station, and the volume of flow through the Medina Pump Station overwhelmed the station as it transitioned from lin