SEATTLE — King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks' Wastewater Treatment Division (WTD) has begun the next step of a process to ensure backup power at its West Point Treatment Plant in Magnolia near Seattle.
This week trucks are delivering and crews are pouring more than 1,600 tons of concrete as the agency builds a structure to house a massive battery that will provide power reliability for the plant, preventing wastewater and stormwater from being discharged into Puget Sound during disruptive events.
WTD says during power disruptions, equipment protects itself by shutting down to prevent long-term damage, which can cause untreated wastewater to go into Puget Sound. The battery will provide a backup in these scenarios.
"It is unique," WTD Deputy Director Bruce Kessler said. "There are not a lot of plants that have used this technology before, so this is an innovative solution to make sure we're providing quality power to our equipment."
The battery solution was selected in May of 2021, and construction began this year. The project is expected to be complete with the system online by 2025.
"The job of this plant is to ensure we're providing clean water to Puget Sound," Kessler said. "We're taking contaminants out of the water before we discharge it, and this is one more way we're going to ensure we're trying to do that and don't have disruptions to service."
The project is one in a number of efforts to prepare the plant for potential long-term impacts.
"How is climate change going to impact how this plant works now compared to what the requirements are going to be in the future?" Kessler said. "We're going to see more intense storms, we'll see them more frequently, and for longer durations-- so this plant really needs to be ready to handle those storms."