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Your guide to the latest news from around the Northwest

March 18, 2013 at 4:26 PM

Seattle company faces $35,000 fine for alleged Duwamish Waterway pollution

A Seattle-based industrial firm that illegally poured polluted stormwater into the Duwamish Waterway for more than a year is facing a $35,000 fine, according to the Department of Ecology.

The state required ConGlobal Industries to implement a stormwater-treatment system  in 2011 for four outfalls that flow into the waterway. But the company — which leases, repairs and maintains shipping containers on the waterway’s eastern shore — had not  ”completed adequate treatment” for three of those outfalls, according to the department.

Studies done in 2010 showed that without treatment, the company’s runoff water contained high concentrations of copper, zinc and silt. All of those pollutants, according to the department, can be toxic to fish and other aquatic and marine life.

The company’s stormwater permit with the state also requires it to monitor levels of solid particles in stormwater runoff and report cases in which levels of those particles exceed legal limits. But at least 16 of these violations were not reported between 2010 and 2012.

ConGlobal can still appeal the penalty.

The penalty is part of the state’s Duwamish Urban Waters Initiative, in which a technical specialist helps companies identify permits and environment-friendly practices to decrease water pollution. The initiative works with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency  to clean up a 5.5 mile stretch of the Lower Duwamish Waterway designated a Superfund site.

Comments | More in Environment | Topics: ConGlobal, Department of Ecology, Duwamish Waterway

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The Today File is a general news blog featuring real-time coverage of Seattle and the Northwest. It is reported by the news staff of The Seattle Times and edited by Assistant Metro Editor Nick Provenza.

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