Have you ever been near the water and wondered whether it’s safe to go in? Thanks to a new law, the public will soon have an easier way to check whether a body of water might have been recently contaminated by sewage.
Under the law passed this year, the Washington State Department of Ecology must develop and publish a website by June 2026 with notices of reported sewage spills, including the volume, level of treatment of the spill, location and other details.
Municipal wastewater treatment operators are already required to report sewage spills to Ecology; however, this information is not easily accessible or available in a timely manner, said Mindy Roberts, the Puget Sound program director with the advocacy group Washington Conservation Action.
This has anecdotally led to swimmers and kayakers and people with dogs being in or near water that has had sewage flow into it, she said.
Roberts said the law will ensure spill information reaches people so they can make “smart decisions about whether they expose themselves.”
“Right now, it’s extremely difficult for someone who wants to plan a trip around our state’s waterways to have any idea whether a beach is safe or not from recent sewage contamination,” said Peter Steelquist, a Washington policy manager for the Surfrider Foundation, during public testimony before the Legislature.
Climate change is expected to drive increased storm activity, which may lead to atmospheric rivers, higher king tides and impacts to infrastructure, Steelquist said during testimony.
“All these factors contribute to increased sewage spills and stormwater overflow in places that we all love and love to play right now,” he said.
King County already has a website that reports “combined sewer overflows” because of a 2013 consent decree, Roberts said. These sewage spills occur in parts of the county where household sewage and rainwater flow into the same set of pipes and usually when heavy rain overwhelms the treatment plant.
Roberts said there are also lesser-known incidents in sewage systems when a backup due to equipment failure or clogs from flushed wipes, bacon grease or other solids leads to sewage overflowing onto the street, which can sometimes flow into bodies of water.
Under the new law, the public will be able to more easily look up these types of spills since they will be reported to one statewide website instead of the current “piecemeal” system, Roberts said.
During the bill’s public testimony, an Ecology representative said the department receives around 300 sewage spill reports a year. Roberts also said during testimony that an intern at the department analyzed over 200 spills from the past five years from a dozen wastewater treatment operators and found that spills range from 10 to 10 million gallons, some of which reach waterways.
“I was stunned when I learned from (her) research that dozens of spills had occurred in my own community,” Roberts said during testimony. “I had no idea. I am a very involved community member and sewage is literally part of my day job.”
The original bill would have required Ecology to implement a public alert system, a map on the website and to produce an annual report on sewage spills, but those components were taken out due to concerns that it would drive up the cost of the bill, Roberts said.
