The Washington Department of Ecology has honored 109 wastewater treatment plants with the Outstanding Performance Award, recognizing excellent compliance with the facilities’ water quality permits in 2022.
"I invite everyone in our state to join me in saying ‘thank you’ to our local wastewater treatment plant operators and staff," said Vince McGowan, Ecology's Water Quality program manager. "We rely on them to keep wastewater treatment plants running 24/7. Their expertise, planning, and hard work benefits all of us and protects water quality every day."
Some highlights of the awards include:
Two facilities are receiving the award for the first time: Williams Lake Sewer District No. 2 and Cascadia wastewater treatment plant.
2022 marks the 25th consecutive year that the Port Townsend wastewater treatment plant has earned the award.
Ecology is recognizing 28 facilities this year that have earned the award at least 15 times in the past: Anacortes, Asotin, Benton City, Big Gulch, Birch Bay, North Bonneville, Bremerton, Douglas County Sewer District, Elma, Eatonville, Forks, Gig Harbor, Grand Coulee, Holmes Harbor Sewer District, Kennewick, Lyle, Klickitat, Okanogan, Olympic Corrections Center, Omak, Penn Cove Park Sewer District, Post Point, Salmon Creek – Clark County, Seattle City Light – Newhalem, Sequim, Stanwood, Vancouver Westside, Wishram.
The full list of recipients is available on Ecology’s list of current awardees.
To determine the awardees, Ecology evaluated wastewater treatment plants on permit conditions such as regularly meeting numeric effluent limits, conducting monitoring, and reporting data as required.
