Brightwater is a regional

sewage treatment plant Sewage treatment (or domestic wastewater treatment, municipal wastewater treatment) is a type of wastewater treatment which aims to remove contaminants from sewage to produce an effluent that is suitable for discharge to the surrounding envir ...

in south

Snohomish County Snohomish County () is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington. With a population of 827,957 as of the 2020 census, it is the third-most populous county in Washington, after nearby King and Pierce counties, and the 75th-most populous ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

, United States. It serves parts of the

Seattle metropolitan area The Seattle metropolitan area is an urban conglomeration in the U.S. state of Washington that comprises Seattle, its surrounding satellites and suburbs. It contains the three most populous counties in the state—King, Snohomish, and Pierce� ...

and was opened in 2011. The plant construction and associated tunneling were a five-year

megaproject A megaproject is an extremely large-scale investment project. According to the ''Oxford Handbook of Megaproject Management'', "Megaprojects are large-scale, complex ventures that typically cost $1 billion or more, take many years to develop and ...

costing $1.8 billion.

Site description

Brightwater is a facility at the intersection of State Route 9 and State Route 522 north of

Woodinville Woodinville is a city in King County, Washington, United States. It is a part of the Seattle metropolitan area. There is also a much larger population with Woodinville mailing addresses in adjacent unincorporated areas of King ( Cottage Lake) and ...

. The plant itself occupies ; the remainder of the property is used for

stormwater Stormwater, also spelled storm water, is water that originates from precipitation (storm), including heavy rain and meltwater from hail and snow. Stormwater can soak into the soil ( infiltrate) and become groundwater, be stored on depressed la ...

treatment and environmental mitigation such as constructed wetlands and stormwater retention.

Tunnel

A , tunnel was built by several

tunnel boring machine A tunnel boring machine (TBM), also known as a "mole", is a machine used to excavate tunnels with a circular cross section through a variety of soil and rock strata. They may also be used for microtunneling. They can be designed to bore throu ...

s from the treatment plant to a

marine outfall A marine outfall (or ocean outfall) is a pipeline or tunnel that discharges municipal or industrial wastewater, stormwater, combined sewer overflows (CSOs), cooling water, or brine effluents from water desalination plants to the sea. Usually they ...

nearly due west on

Puget Sound Puget Sound ( ) is a sound of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is located along the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected ma ...

. The outfall is below the surface. Construction delays were incurred due to unexpected soil conditions causing damage to the boring machines. The problems with the Brightwater tunnel were considered when planning other large regional tunnel projects, including the

Link light rail Link light rail is a light rail rapid transit system serving the Seattle metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Washington. It is managed by Sound Transit in partnership with local transit providers, and consists of two non-connected lines: t ...

Capitol Hill Capitol Hill, in addition to being a metonym for the United States Congress, is the largest historic residential neighborhood in Washington, D.C., stretching easterly in front of the United States Capitol along wide avenues. It is one of the ...

tunnel and the

Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel The State Route 99 tunnel, also known as the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel, is a bored highway tunnel in the city of Seattle, Washington, United States. The , double-decker tunnel carries a section of State Route 99 (SR 99) under ...

. The tunnel was completed in 2011, and full use of the outfall began on November 2, 2012.

History

In August 2002, then

King County Executive The King County Executive is the highest elected official representing the government of King County, Washington. The post was established with the implementation of the Home Rule Charter for King County on November 5, 1968. Previously the powers o ...

Ron Sims Ronald Cordell Sims (born July 5, 1948) is the former Deputy Secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, having served in the position from May 8, 2009 to July 2011. He is also the former King County Executive. Sims ...

announced that a billion-dollar regional sewage-treatment plant named "Brightwater" would be built in neighboring

and provide service for parts of King and Snohomish counties.

Controversies

Since its proposal, Brightwater has been the subject of numerous lawsuits, including a lawsuit by King County against Snohomish County that was settled when King County agreed to pay $70 million for public safety, habitat protection, and parks in Snohomish County. The project has also had many cost overruns totaling over $272 million. In December 2006, the project had resolved all its lawsuits and only needed building permits from Snohomish County. However, concerns remain over the siting of the project, both from its future neighbors worried about the smells associated with sewage treatment and geologists due to at least one active

fault line In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic ...

running through the site, and concerns over whether a new plant was necessary when eliminating stormwater and wastewater from the sewage system.Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Brightwater treatment plant nears last hurdle, on track to open in 2010
/ref> King County countered these concerns by stating the plant will feature advanced odor control, of wildlife habitat will be restored, the plant has been designed to withstand a 7.3-

magnitude Magnitude may refer to: Mathematics *Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction *Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object *Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector *Order of ...

earthquake, and that the project will be paid by new customers.

Public art

The Brightwater plant includes 15 works of

public art Public art is art in any Media (arts), media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and phy ...

. The $4.4 million acquisition was funded through the county One Percent for Art construction setaside program.

References

External links

*
Brightwater Center public education facility
{{coord, 47.79, -122.14, type:landmark, display=title Buildings and structures in Snohomish County, Washington Sewage treatment plants in Washington (state) 2011 establishments in Washington (state)