Full Description

King County is located on Puget Sound midway in western Washington State and covers more than 2,200 square miles. King County includes the City of Seattle and the surrounding metropolitan area. With more than 1.5 million people, it is the 12th most populous county in the nation. On March 14, 2001, under recommendation from the Department of Ecology and the Executive Water Emergency Committee, Washington State Governor, Gary Locke, declared drought status in Washington State. Snow pack measurements indicated that there would be less than seventy five percent of normal runoff this year. Runoff from the snow pack is a major source of water to streams. This affected reservoir levels as well as groundwater recharge. Washington instituted conservation measures to maintain instream flows required for salmonids and other aquatic life as well as for providing the hydropower generating capacity to meet energy needs. At the time of the drought declaration, King County Department of Natural Resources was already in the process of developing a comprehensive reclaimed water program to defer the need to develop new potable water supplies. The County was also in the process of implementing its own drought response plan. King County executive, Ron Sims, responded to the drought by asking county staff to rapidly accelerate the development of the reclaimed water program to aid in reducing the potential effects of the water shortage. This paper discusses the challenges, innovative solutions, successes and lessons learned from those efforts. King County's current reclaimed water program consists of producing Class A reclaimed water at two regional wastewater plants. The South treatment plant is capable of producing approximately 1.3 million gallons a day of reclaimed water and the West treatment plant can produce 0.7 million gallons. Since 1997, the reclaimed water has been used for in-house treatment plant purposes and for irrigation of parks and athletic fields. There were three basic challenges presented to state regulators and King County employees to help alleviate the impact of the drought and to give the political leaders what they promise and want. They were to get uses on-line quickly, get through the regulatory maze and gain public support for reclaimed water use. King County responded with a four-point strategy to expedite projects that are already in progress, encourage new users, provide a demonstration site for public education and truck reclaimed water to areas of need. compliance Includes reference, table.

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Edition: Vol. - No. Published: 01/01/2002 Number of Pages: 7 File Size: 1 file , 180 KB