The Ship Canal Water Quality Project entails building a 2.8-mile underground tunnel between Ballard and Wallingford that will store stormwater and wastewater water during storms. This tunnel will reduce the amount of polluted water that flows into the Lake Washington Ship Canal from Ballard, Fremont, Wallingford and north Queen Anne.
For King County, a joint project meets the requirements of its Combined Sewer Overflow Control Program, “Protecting Our Waters".” It will also be more cost-effective and pose fewer impacts than separate, independent projects the county and the city would need to build.
As the lead agency, SPU is preparing a project-level SEIS to better understand how the project will affect the environment and community. Last year, SPU completed a comprehensive long-range plan to reduce sewage overflows and stormwater pollution. The Plan to Protect Seattle’s Waterways EIS is available online at the “Waterway Protection” link on www.seattle.gov/CSO.
The Ship Canal Water Quality Project was evaluated in the EIS and is one of the first projects moving forward. The supplemental EIS will expand upon the programmatic EIS to address new and changed project-level effects.
Agencies, affected tribal governments, and members of the public are invited to submit scoping comments to Betty.Meyer@seattle.gov and learn more online at www.seattle.gov/util/ShipCanalProject.