The City of Issaquah has posted material on its website to respond to the facts as presented by the Sammamish Plateau Water and Sewer District. Issaquah’s page is titled “Our Water, Our City.” There are differing opinions on this issue, however, in the interest of bringing forward the facts from thousands of pages of public documents, scientific studies, historical accounts and recent events, we thought we’d provide counterpoints to a number of statements Issaquah has made. We will continue to provide as much clarity to what has developed into a very complex issue.
Issaquah Statement: “The City of Issaquah is dedicated to protecting the quality of our drinking water and the Lower Issaquah Valley Aquifer, a vital source of drinking water for the citizens of Issaquah and Sammamish.”
District Counterpoint: Ninety-three percent (93%) of the District’s service territory is outside of Issaquah and includes most of Sammamish, Klahanie and other areas of unincorporated King County. The three District wells that Issaquah wants to take over provide nearly half of the groundwater supply for these District customers, making this a regional water issue.
Issaquah Statement: “The City takes several precautions to protect the aquifer near this well [District Well 9] from a variety of issues.”
District Counterpoint: Issaquah’s precautions are limited to a settling pond, a series of bioswales that attract birds and geese (and their associated droppings) and a shallow layer of soil and rock that is supposed to filter out the heavy metals and fecal coliform bacteria. In 2008, fecal coliform contamination was detected in a District monitoring well located between the injection site (LRIG) and Well 9. It’s believed this occurred because the filtering layer (known as the vadose zone) is too shallow and too porous to filter dissolved contaminants and fecal bacteria, and is also too close to a main municipal well. Issaquah has applied to the Department of Ecology to resume injecting contaminated stormwater into the aquifer. The District is contesting this because nothing in the design of the LRIG has changed since it was shut down in 2008 and the risk for contaminating the aquifer is still too high.
Issaquah Statement: “The Sammamish Plateau Water and Sewer District, for example, washes chemicals and pollutants from its treatment facility at Well 9, and then permits the material to infiltrate into the ground.”
District Counterpoint: At best, the District washes off treatment equipment at Well 9 about twice a year when doing routine maintenance. About one to two gallons of water is used during this cleaning process. This solution is then diluted and washed onto the gravel or into our retention pond. These chemicals are commonly used to treat potable water and in the small quantities released would not adversely affect the aquifer.
Issaquah Statement: “Along with typical water treatment, Issaquah also designed and built an innovative underground system near Well 9 called the Lower Reid Infiltration Gallery to manage stormwater in east Issaquah. The system infiltrates the water into the ground and recharges the aquifer.”
District Counterpoint: The stormwater is typically injected during the rainy months, when the aquifer does not need to be recharged beyond the rain that nature provides. In fact, it tends to over-recharge because the soils are so porous, and the aquifer water level gets so high in the rainy months, that there is very little soil left in the vadose zone to adequately filter the contaminants from the stormwater before it enters the aquifer. If rainwater cannot be dispersed and directly infiltrated into the soil up on the hill, the best alternative would be to treat the stormwater to groundwater standards before injecting it into a drinking water source. The District has offered to invest $400,000 in this project. Issaquah turned down the District’s offer.
Issaquah Statement: “This infiltration, which is required by the federal government to help address environmental pollution, is a best practice currently utilized by other cities in Washington State and Oregon. Plus, it helps to minimize flooding impacts on the North Fork of Issaquah Creek and ensures that wetlands receive needed water to survive.”
District Counterpoint: There is no federal government regulation that requires an injection well. Wetlands would have been better served had water been infiltrated naturally up on the hill or if the City of Issaquah had designated the Issaquah Highlands as a Low Impact Development neighborhood. There are no other injection wells in the state that are in such close proximity to a large municipal water source. Even the Department of Ecology has stated that this is the first discharge permit of its kind. Additionally, while the injection site has been shut down and stormwater has been diverted to the north fork of Issaquah Creek, no substantial flooding has been reported.
Issaquah Statement: “Use of this system is pending a permit decision from the Washington State Department of Ecology. In the meantime, Ecology requires Issaquah to divert the stormwater into the North Fork of Issaquah Creek. In 2008, bacteria were found in a nearby well used only for monitoring. Subsequent monitoring, however, during a two-year period shows that the system would help protect the aquifer.”
District Counterpoint: Monitoring wells are used to detect contaminants before they reach a drinking water well. The fecal coliform, detected in a District monitoring well, had, in fact, already entered the aquifer. The District immediately shut down Well 9 so as not to draw the bacteria into the well. Subsequent monitoring as performed by Issaquah has been reported as spotty, sporadic and deemed insufficient according to a number of concerned hydrogeologists. The District had advocated for more stringent monitoring on the part of Issaquah during this period in addition to its own monitoring. In the meantime, the LRIG operates under the same technology as it did in 2008, so there is nothing to ensure that contaminants would not enter the aquifer as they did before. The possibility exists that if Issaquah resumes injection, contamination could occur once again.
Issaquah Statement: “The City of Issaquah is currently studying the impacts of assuming utility services for all customers within its boundaries. Most of Issaquah already receives utility service from the City. However, there are a few neighborhoods that are served by either the City of Bellevue or the Sammamish Plateau Water and Sewer District. “A special purpose district made sense 60 years ago when the Sammamish Plateau and areas in Issaquah were rural and sparsely populated.”
District Counterpoint: The District is a multi-jurisdictional provider of urban water and sewer service to 54,000 customers in Sammamish, Issaquah and parts of King County, including Klahanie, making it nearly twice the size of Issaquah and far more complex.
Issaquah Statement: “However, in today’s thriving urban environment, assumption of utility services in South Cove and North Issaquah could:
• Enhance customer service by reducing confusion on who offers what service
• Create efficiencies in utility service”
District Counterpoint: A public records request of Issaquah produced no data to support that customers are confused. Spending millions of dollars to take over the portion of the District inside City boundaries could be an expensive program to enhance customer service and reduce supposed customer confusion! The service study (assumption study) is also suspect when public records repeatedly show that the real interest is in Issaquah getting control of the District’s three production wells to silence its opposition to the resumption of injection stormwater so close to the wells. The District is one of the most sophisticated providers of water and sewer services in Washington. With 29 square miles of service area, the District knows how to deliver reliable services over challenging topography to two cities and part of King County.
Issaquah Statement: “In addition, the state recommends and encourages cities to provide services, such as water and sewer, inside their city limits.”
District Counterpoint: The Growth Management Act was written to encourage cities to assume smaller, isolated rural water districts that serve neighborhoods inside the city, not to encourage a city to conduct a hostile takeover of major wells from a regional water district twice its size and with only 7.6% of its territory inside the city’s boundary.
Issaquah Statement: "Customers located in Issaquah, but currently served by the current Sammamish Plateau Water and Sewer District, would see a decrease in rates and connection charges."
District Counterpoint: Issaquah residents should be aware that Issaquah has a utility tax, which can be increased to pay for the multi-million dollar assumption and system separation process. In addition, the District has in place a responsible repair and replacement program to protect customers from dramatic price hikes when infrastructure needs to be repaired and maintained in the future. This is considered to be a responsible and proactive program, followed by Redmond and Bellevue. Issaquah has no such program.
Issaquah Statement: Only 7.6 percent of the Sammamish Plateau Water and Sewer District’s service area is located in Issaquah, which represents only 11.1 percent of its water consumption.
District Counterpoint: Issaquah is leaving out the District’s three primary production wells located inside city boundaries. Public records obtained from Issaquah revealed their early intention to assume the portion of the District within city limits in order to get control of these wells, specifically Well 9. We feel this attempt is to silence the District’s opposition to risking contamination of their customers’ drinking water. Additionally, these three wells provide roughly half of the groundwater for Sammamish, Issaquah and King County, making this a regional water resource that requires regional collaboration rather than unilateral action.
Issaquah Statement: The residents of one neighborhood in North Issaquah, Overdale Park, chose to ask the Sammamish Plateau Water and Sewer District for service and to pay for necessary improvements through a Utility Local Improvement District (ULID).
District Counterpoint: The citizens of Overdale Park first asked Issaquah if they could connect to Issaquah water and sewer once they detected rising arsenic levels in their own wells. Issaquah turned them down. The District offered to connect them to the District’s system and secured favorable financing terms to cover the costs.
Issaquah Statement: Issaquah extended invitations to Bellevue and the Sammamish Plateau Water and Sewer District to work together on technical issues associated with evaluating the potential assumption of services.
District Counterpoint: Bellevue’s water and sewer infrastructure is older than the District’s and in need of repair and they were more than happy for Issaquah to assume it. In addition, Bellevue didn’t have three production wells to protect from an injection well. There was no open or collaborative invitation to the District. In fact, the District discovered Issaquah’s plans and requested meetings to work together on a regional solution. While City officials see themselves as collaborative, in reality they refused the District’s offer to invest $400,000 for a water treatment facility, refused offers to review service, delivery and governance options, and never even responded to the District’s offer for mediation to resolve their differences.
The District will continue to monitor information distributed by the City of Issaquah and offer factual clarifications to keep you in the conversation. Please go to www.letstalkaboutourwater.org for more information and check back frequently for updates!