Copyright 2007-2008, Wally Giffin
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Updates by Wally Giffin
Site established on Oct. 15, 2007
7-23-07
9-30-07.
Polluted water running into main lake
These two photos were taken at 4:15 Pm on Sunday, September 30, 2007.
The rain station in Tacoma at 96th & Pacific available through KINGTV reports that on September 30, 2007
From midnight to 4:07 PM, the rain total was .59 inches
And it had rained pretty steady since 8:30 that morning with the average hourly precipitation of .04 inches per hours. There was about one hour of .08 inches per hour and 35 minutes of .12 inches per hour.
Notice how high the water is on the retention pond side. Bad angle, I know, but it appears to me that if the original board had still been in place the polluted water would have been coming over the top of it. And this was not a monsoon type of downpour.
Because of the previous single board and the design of the outflow pipe, the 'ten times more polluted' water in the retention pond has been going into the main lake for who knows how many years.
However, it doesn't make any difference how many years. It has been a major contributor to the pollution of our, used to be, beautiful lake and it is time to fix it.
Whoever, and for whatever reason the sewer pipes were crossed at the Tacoma Mall, someone should be responsible to help pay for the cleanup of Wapato Lake.
I am retired from the City of Tacoma and when we had a contractor do work for us or that involved any of our equipment, their work was required to be inspected. Did city inspectors inspect the mall project? Did the contractor have a permit?
In addition, the City and the State should come up with a plan to filter the pollutants out of the storm water runoff. This is 2007 folks--not 1942 nor 1981. You may have not even known about the problems with pollution back when the freeway was built around 1965 or when the first city storm sewers were dumped into the lake, but you do know now.
And maybe now, someone should take the time to actually go down to the lake on a very rainy day and study this problem.
While they are down there, maybe they could look at the fact that there are no garbage cans of any kind in the bathroom on the south end, or that there is toilet paper stuck to the ceiling of the woman's bathroom.
Yes, there are two garbage cans about 100 feet from the bathroom, but the gals think there should be one inside the bathroom and a toilet paper dispenser that can hold more than just one roll of toilet paper. The men's room holds two!
Then also, someone could explain to the taxpayers why there has been a Honey Bucket inside the locked fence of the bath house for over a year and not even a sign pointing folks to the bathrooms they can use.
The board of commissioners seem to me to be on the right track and from what I've been told wish to bring Wapato Lake back to what it really can be. However, they, along with the consultant, do not have an easy job.
Not only is there the problem of the mall sewage, but the other large factor is the goose population. Some folks really get riled when we mention getting rid of them.
So let’s give these officials some help and let them know what we want by taking the survey or writing and/or calling them.
9-30-07.
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So the marsh has "...bacterial concentrations about 10 times greater than the level considered safe for human contact..." (TNT 6-26-07) That must mean that there's a whole bunch of poop and pollution in that retention pond. And that must also mean a whole bunch of that pollution spills over into the main lake. See Effects of Mall Sewage on Wapato Lake
Well, just take a look at this. The parks department, after my letter of July 23, went down to the dike and put the single board down flat that had been raised up by two small branches.
And now as of September 30 they have corrected the deficiency in the dike by putting the boards level all the way across. However, we had a rainstorm starting about 3 PM on Saturday and here is what was happening on Sunday, September 30 at 4:15 PM
414.8 tons of human poop and toilet paper
320,625 gallons of urine and stool water
243 tons of goose poop
(See resources page for explanation of math)
The Tacoma News Tribune of June 26, 2007 has stated, “that two sewer connections servicing "...15 plumbing fixtures inside J C Penny" and "...an unknown load of waste from a retail area east of the mall’s food court..." were found to be faulty.”
According a later article, (TNT-9-17-07) “…Gibbons (The Consultant for Wapato Lake) and Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department officials do not believe the sewage affected the lake this summer.
What about all the other years? Whatever has not been washed over the dike into the main lake or gone to the small outflow pipe is still there.
On 9-14-07 The TNT reported that, “If Metro Parks had the money, Gibbons said he would recommend dredging, which could cost $11 million or more and its effects would last as long as 50 years if the lake is properly managed”. “ Even though it’s more expensive, it’s more long term,” he said.”
“…..officials have stopped trying to figure out when and who made the mistake. It could date back to the mall’s original construction in the 1960s, he said Tuesday. Both the sewer line and the storm drain were laid in the same trench.”
Mall managers corrected the problem right away and there appears to be no penalty in the works.
The question here is that someone should have been responsible for inspecting this hookup, no matter when it occurred.
So who was it? If they had a permit, it appears that the city should have inspected it. Maybe the sewer department needs to be held responsible for this matter. 415 TONS OF POOP IN OUR LAKE, AND POSSIBLY MUCH MORE, IS NOT A SMALL MATTER.
See the history (1942 to 1948) of Wapato. This is not the first time the city has dumped raw sewage into this lake. It was closed for six years in that incident.
The Department of Ecology is still conducting an investigation, but no decisions have been made.
From the TNT-July 6, 2007
“The 34-acre Wapato Lake is the focal point of the much-loved South End Park, a gathering place for Tacoma residents for more than 100 years. But the quality of Wapato Lake water has deteriorated so badly over the past few years that people no longer swim there; birds, fish and turtles have died; and outbreaks of toxin-producing blue-green algae have become common. Earlier this year, Gibbon (the parks departments’ consultant for Wapato Lake) identified the problem as excess phosphorus, an ingredient of fertilizers and detergents. Samples showed 10 or 20 times normal levels of phosphorus in the lake, likely fed by a buildup in sediment on the bottom.”
It's a cinch that there has been a whole bunch of fertilizer dumped into the lake. So now who or what do we snare in order to make up for all these past transgressions?
The waste from the Tacoma Mall is 41 + % more poop than can be pinned onto the undocumented alien Canadian Geese.
Guess who should definitely pay a large part of the cleanup of Wapato Lake.
No way should the taxpayers have to pay again to clean up this lake. Enough is enough.
This does not exclude the fact that the fowl population needs to be reduced. There are now 7 geese per acre on the main lake and that should be reduced to 2 to 3 per acre.
Maybe we should be charging an import fee on the wiley creatures or try deporting them with some monetary help from the Canadian government.
It has been noted by my family that the geese rarely visit the retention pond. It has thick brush all the way around the edge. Maybe if we get the lake cleaned up, we could put similar brush around the main lake except for some key areas and remove some brush from a few areas of the retention pond. This would spread the wealth. In that, I mean the main lake is only about 23 acres and the retention pond adds the other 11 or so acres.
160 geese on 23 acres = 7 per acre of water. On 34 acres it would be 4.7. But it would distribute the goose poop more evenly. The consultant has recommeneded something of this nature, but does he mean the entire lake including the retention pond or only the main lake.
Someone, some entity, some company or department or maybe a whole gamut of different entities are responsible. It should be determined who they are with a formal investigation by a non-biased panel.
Maybe some attorneys in our town would be willing to file a class action lawsuit against all of those responsible parties, pro bono.
The mall sewer pipes have been fixed, but the possibility remains that these sewer pipes were crossed when the mall was first opened in 1965.
When the lake was drained in 1981, did they clean the bottom of the retention pond as well?
An investigation needs to be conducted about this matter. The taxpayers and Wapato Lake have not been given the due diligence they deserve.
I have not received an answer for this email as of August 5, 2008
08/31/2007
Dear Citizen,
Thank you for using tacomaservices.org to submit your online request.
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Name: Wally Giffin
Email: wallygiffin253@msn.com
What are the boundries for City streets that dump storm water runoff into the retention pond just North of Wapato Lake?
What are the boundaries for State (ie--Interstsate 5) storm water runoff into the retention pond just North of Wapato Lake?
What would be the max flow in gallons per minute or hour in--hundreds, thousands, or ? of feet that could flow through a three foot diameter pipe?
What would be the max flow in gallons per minute or hour in --hundreds, thousands, or ? of feet that could flow through a four foot diameter pipe?
What would be the max flow in gallons per minute or hour in--hundreds, thousands, or ? of feet that could flow through a six foot diameter pipe?
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