Oil from two military bases may be reaching Puget Sound

Fort Lewis Army base and neighboring McChord Air Force Base have been flushing oil through their sewage system, which feeds into Puget Sound.

The pollution has triggered concerns among state and federal environmental officials, first alerted to the problem last year by a company that found sewage sludge at the treatment plant contaminated with up to 2 percent oil.

The state Department of Ecology is asking the Army to sign an agreement that it will work to keep oil from getting into sewage pipes and the Sound, or face possible legal action.

"It's a grave concern to the state because Fort Lewis discharges directly into Puget Sound," said Ecology spokeswoman Sandy Howard.

Fort Lewis officials said they already are taking steps to keep oil from reaching sewer pipes. They said they haven't decided if they will sign an agreement with the state.

But they note that the Army treatment plant, which takes effluent from the Air Force base as well, remains in compliance with its federal permit, and that recent tests of treated wastewater headed for the Sound don't raise a concern.

"There's not much oil going out in our effluent," said Phil Crawford, chief of environmental compliance at Fort Lewis' public-works department. "The numbers we've got don't indicate a problem."

It's not clear how much oil has flowed into the Sound through the plant's pipe for treated wastewater, which extends into the Sound north of the Nisqually River.

The plant isn't designed to filter out oil, so at least some is expected to have gotten through, said Howard, the Ecology spokeswoman. A group of current and former plant employees, who late last year filed a federal whistle-blower complaint about plant operations, estimated it could have been 5 gallons a day.

The sewage plant typically flushes out about 5 million gallons of treated wastewater every day, the equivalent of that created by a city of 50,000 people, said Tom Eaton of the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which regulates the plant.

The problem appears to stem at least partly from poor maintenance practices on the base, said state Ecology inspector Pinky Feria.

Her focus fell partly on oil-water separators, devices designed to trap oil that's mixed with water and keep it from flowing into sewer pipes. When she went to the base in spring 2006, Feria said, she found one separator with a broken part that apparently hadn't been repaired in three years. She said the separators were also being emptied once a year, even if they filled up and overflowed before that.

Feria said she was also told that people might be dumping fuel from vehicles before they are deployed, rather than properly disposing of the fuel.

While Feria couldn't confirm that was happening, she found levels of diesel fuel in the oil-water separators that made her suspicious.

"I think that there's a big enough arrow that's pointing in that direction," she said.

Paul Steucke, head of Fort Lewis' environmental division in the public-works department, bristled at the idea people were dumping fuel on base. "That's an unfounded allegation," he said.

Meanwhile, members of the whistle-blower group complain Fort Lewis managers have ignored their concerns.

"Nobody is listening to us," said Rhonda Rounds, who said she has worked there as a sewage-plant operator for more than 20 years.

Among their complaints: That the plant isn't conducting aggressive tests of effluent, isn't repairing leaky sewer pipes, tried to downplay concerns about the contaminated sludge, and is allowing an unqualified employee to work as manager.

A Fort Lewis spokesman, Joseph Piek, said officials there couldn't respond to the whistle-blower complaint Thursday because they hadn't fully reviewed it.

U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Tacoma, whose district includes Fort Lewis, was told of the issue this week, said Smith spokesman Derrick Crowe. "He's very concerned about it; he's going to be in contact with the base, probably within the next 24 hours," Crowe said.

Warren Cornwall: 206-464-2311 or wcornwall@seattletimes.com