Eastsound Wastewater Treatment Project, Eastsound, Washington

A sewer project was planned for Eastsound, Washington, an unincorporated community on Orcas Island, one of the San Juan Island cluster, in Puget Sound. The islands are rural in character, with settlements of shops and restaurants, are used primarily for recreation, and support numbers of tourists who use the resort and park facilities and create a large seasonal population influx. Orcas Island residents now use individual septic systems for sewage disposal. The planned Eastsound sewer system consists of pressure sewer collectors and interceptors, a secondary treatment plant, and a marine outfall for the treated effluent. The Eastsound Concerned Citizens Committee, a group of Orcas Island residents, made several allegations regarding the proposed sewer system, questioning the need for such a project and the procedures followed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which permitted the project's funding.