Following is a letter Lakewood resident Don Russell sent to Representatives Kilduff and Leavitt, and Senator O’Ban.

Waughop Lake is a State owned nutrient polluted, toxic algae infested lake that poses a public health hazard risk to all who contact its water or breath the toxin laced aerosols that emanate from this lake.

Its present polluted condition is the result of past discharges of slaughtered animal waste, manure and human sewage by Western State Hospital and more recently by Pierce College’s intermittent discharges of human sewage into Waughop Lake. State environmental law requires that the Lake’s safe beneficial recreational use be restored. Restoration can only be accomplished by removing from Waughop Lake the layer of nutrient polluted sediment laid down by these institutions’ polluted point source discharges into the Lake.

The removal of this layer of nutrient polluted sediment was the recommended remediation prescribed by three independent studies.

Instead of removing this layer of nutrient polluted sediment on behalf of the State, the City of Lakewood has elected to further exacerbate Waughop Lake’s already polluted condition (and hasten its progression to a toxic hydrogen sulfide gas emitting swamp) by requesting a permit that will allow the City’s contractor, HAB Aquatic Solutions, to discharge tons of toxic aluminum and sulfur compounds into Waughop Lake, at a total Consultant/Contractor cost of $420,759. The City plans to fund this discharge by misappropriating Surface Water Management and Flood Control Zone District fees levied on City of Lakewood and Pierce County property owners. For details on this proposed action see The Suburban Times article titled:

Letter to Department of Ecology regarding proposed Waughop Lake treatment

There is wide spread citizen opposition (30+ articles in the Suburban Times) to the City taking this City staff advocated and City hired alum treatment advocate TetraTech’s prescribed alum treatment of Waughop Lake. TetraTech is being paid $94,086 to draft the technical specifications for the project that it prescribes (and incidentally can only be met by one Contractor, HAB Aquatic Solutions, out of Nebraska), provide City staff and Council members with rationale to oppose consideration of any other mitigation/remediation options being proposed by Waughop Lake stakeholders, and to oversee HAB’s $326,673 discharge of tons of aluminum and sulfur compound pollutants into Waughop Lake.

Instead of City Council members representing the will of those who have elected them, City Council members have consistently defended the actions of the City staff who have been misadvising them.

Several well qualified Lakewood citizens have submitted comments to Ecology requesting that the City be denied a permit authorizing the City’s Consultant prescribed discharge of tons of polluting aluminum and sulfur compounds into Waughop Lake. The outcome of this stakeholder alum treatment opposition effort is now in Ecology’s hands and remains to be seen.

We need you, our State representatives, to do what the Lakewood City Council has failed to do, i.e., to act in the best interest of the citizens that you and they represent. The pending alum treatment of Waughop Lake, if permitted, will result in unintended and irreversible adverse ecological consequences in what could otherwise become a valuable and treasured City of Lakewood asset, but only if wisely and properly managed.