Sewage spill at Sun Lakes stop short of water
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 3 years, 2 months AGO
Joel Martin has been with the Columbia Basin Herald for more than 25 years in a variety of roles and is the most-tenured employee in the building. Martin is a married father of eight and enjoys spending time with his children and his wife, Christina. He is passionate about the paper’s mission of informing the people of the Columbia Basin because he knows it is important to record the history of the communities the publication serves. | August 3, 2023 6:11 PM
COULEE CITY — A power failure at a lift station caused a small sewage spill at Sun Lakes State Park Tuesday, according to Dennis Felton, area manager for Coulee Area State Parks, but the lake water wasn’t affected.
“It was strictly just liquid that came out of it, no solids,” Felton said. “The closest it got to the actual water was 15 feet. Of course, we blocked the area off and the sunshine, within about six hours, dried everything up.”
The spill was the result of a power surge that shut down the motors in the pump, Felton explained. That station takes in sewage from two other stations in the park, and when it stopped pumping, it was overfilled.
“We got to it before the flow got any worse,” he said. “Got our pumps back up and running which then sucked our wet well down to where it normally sits at. It's back in normal operation again right now.”
The whole operation took about 10 minutes, Felton said.
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