PORT TOWNSEND — A city-contracted crew was working against the tidal clock Tuesday afternoon to patch the city’s treated sewage outfall pipe, which was believed to have been damaged at North Beach during a recent storm.
The pipe was cracked at the joint, which left an unknown amount of treated water bubbling up through the sand on the beach.
The damage forced the city to close a section of the North Beach shore near the North Beach County Park parking lot at the end of Kuhn Street.
A sign was posted at the parking lot that announced the temporary closure.
City Manager David Timmons on Tuesday said initial inspection led city public works officials to believe that the outfall line may shifted slightly by storm-driven tidal action.
Water had been treated
Timmons said that the section of beach was closed as a precautionary, even though the water had been treated at the city sewage treatment plant about a half-mile away on Kuhn Street.
“It’s just that the rules require that we have to get out in the mixing zone, in the currents,” Timmons said.
Because the water is treated, Timmons said the break is “more of a nuisance than an emergency.”
Treated city wastewater is discharged into the Strait of Juan de Fuca from the end of the outfall pipe about 915 feet offshore, according to city information.
The city treats an average of 950,000 gallons a day with peak flows of stormwater doubling or even tripling the amount normally treated.
A Roy-area contractor’s crew that specializes in such pipe breaks had dug a hole around the damaged joint of the pipe at low tide late Tuesday afternoon to patch the crack.
Timmons said he expects the job to cost less than $10,000 and work was expected to be completed Tuesday or today.