Ferry System To Pay For Broken Sewer Pipe

The state ferry system will pay $1.98 million to replace an underwater sewer pipe destroyed eight years ago during expansion of the Kingston ferry terminal.

Kitsap County officials said this week that the Washington State Ferries agreed to pay the county.

The outfall - a buried, 12-inch pipe used to move treated sewage from a treatment plant to Puget Sound - was broken during dredging at the terminal. About 800 feet of the 1,500-foot pipe was destroyed.

Since then, treated effluent from the Kingston wastewater treatment plant has been discharging into Puget Sound next to the ferry terminal, instead of farther away in water 50 feet deep.

Health officials have not detected measurable contamination in the water, said Keith Grellner of the Bremerton-Kitsap County Health District.

No one noticed the problem until early 1997, when the county hired some divers to check the performance of the outfall pipe. The divers found nothing coming out of the pipe.

“Fish were living in it,” said George Mason, the county’s assistant public works director for utilities.

A dye test of the effluent revealed the treated wastewater was entering the water right at the ferry dock, Mason said.