Tom Callis has the story in the Peninsula Daily News:
PORT ANGELES — A 100,000-gallon sewage spill that closed Hollywood Beach and the Valley Creek Estuary to water recreation from Friday until Tuesday afternoon was merely a drop in the bucket in terms of the amount of untreated effluent that makes its way into Port Angeles Harbor each year.
Because of the city’s out-of-date sewer system, an average of 32 million gallons of untreated sewage and storm water is dumped into the harbor each year, said Port Angeles Engineering Manager Kathryn Neal.
This occurs because the city’s sewers, which were built before the 1960s, not only carry what is flushed down more than 19,000 toilets, but also storm water.
Whenever Port Angeles gets a rain shower that is sustained for as little as 30 minutes to an hour, the storm water overflows those sewers and dumps what it can’t handle into the harbor, said Terri Partch, city civil engineer.
