King County council deciding own probe into local sewage disaster

The Metropolitan King County Council is deciding whether to launch its own investigation into what caused major damage at a sewage-treatment plant in Seattle last month.

If approved at its Monday meeting, the investigation would be separate from the one announced last week by King County administration officials.

KIRO 7’s Graham Johnson is talking with the King County Councilmember leading the effort to get answers about the crisis, for KIRO 7 News at 5. Watch with us on TV or use this link for the KIRO 7 livestream.

County officials said they have hired an outside firm to conduct an independent review of the incident and make recommendations.

In all, about 235 million gallons of raw sewage and untreated stormwater have flowed into Puget Sound since Feb. 9 when a power outage caused pumps at the facility to fail. The county says about 90 percent of that mixture was stormwater, or runoff that flows off roads. Repairs are estimated to cost about $25 million.

Officials have said they expect to restore the West Point Treatment Plant to normal operations by April 30.

Cox Media Group