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The US Environmental Protection Agency’s Hot Mix Asphalt Plant Emission Assessment Report provides the pounds-per-year of pollutants expected from typical asphalt plants.
In our toxic world, the only safe drinking water is that which evaporates from the ocean, condenses in a cloud, and drops as rain or snow in a clean, natural environment. This is what Seattle drinks, and it is what Renton residents deserve as well.
Treated industrial runoff will never be healthy drinking water. Industrial runoff is treated to a level that will minimize harm to wildlife as the water returns to the ocean. It’s not treated to a standard that makes it safe enough for human consumption. Only evaporation and condensation will make treated industrial runoff safe to drink again.
With their proposed new Asphalt plant, Lakeside Industries is planning to remove about 30-60% of the contaminants from their runoff using onsite treatment. They will then inject the remaining waste-water, still containing 40-70% of some of the worst pollutants, into Renton’s sole source aquifer. This is per poor instructions from the County, in a flawed approval process that has acknowledged the responsibility to protect salmon but not Renton’s residents.
Airborne contaminants from asphalt production will settle on equipment and pavement throughout Lakeside’s industrial site. Rainstorms will flush the poisons into a central catch basin, along with waste water from hosing down equipment and pavement. Contaminants will include toxins like benzene, arsenic, lead, and mercury, along with dangerous PAHs that can cause cancer and autoimmune diseases, including fatal blood diseases. Approximately half of the deadliest contaminates, those that are fully dissolved into the drinking water, will pass right through the “Enhanced basic” on-site filtration system–by design.
King County has required Lakeside to meet an “enhanced basic” standard in treating their runoff, which lets 30-60% of heavy metals pass right through. The partial-treatment comprises an oil separator, a sand vault, and a small retention pond. The 50% or so of dangerous contaminants that flow right through these simple systems will be infiltrated into our aquifer recharge zone.
There’s widespread misunderstanding about the capability of the on-site system to clean the water. The treated water is considered too dirty to dump in the Cedar River. Renton should not allow water deemed too dirty for the Cedar River to be intentionally pumped into our sole source aquifer.
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