FORT LEWIS, Wash. – Workers at the Fort Lewis sewage treatment plant say they can no longer stay silent and watch it happen. They say the Fort is allowing dangerous contaminants to flow unchecked into Puget Sound, and now these workers have blown the lid off a simmering problem.

KING

Fort Lewis waste water treatment plant

These workers have nothing gain and a lot to lose by coming forward, and their message is now being heard by federal environmental regulators, but the frustrating thing here, is they may be powerless to make the Fort change its ways.

The Fort Lewis waste water treatment plant sits on a bluff above Puget Sound. The water it treats flows from there through a pipe to an underwater outfall hundreds of feet out in Puget Sound.

It's what's going through that pipe that has waste water workers upset.

"We have oil coming in all the time, these days anyway, and we have test results that show it's coming in and it's going out," said Rhonda Rounds, who has spent 30 years processing waste water from Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base.

She and fellow workers say over the last year, the bases are allowing waves of petroleum product to go down the sewer.

"We asked them what it was and they were telling us it was diesel fuel… and some other stuff," said Cindy Winston.

Public Utility workers say they watched personnel illegally dump toxic petroleum products right into the sewer system.

Petroleum products can completely throw off the biological  treatment at the plant and in some cases, according to the workers, bypass it all together.

That's why Fort motorpool and other workers are supposed to recycle all engine fluids and keep them away from the sewer.

Fort Lewis officials say the claims of dumping are unfounded. They say their test show no or only tiny traces of petroleum going out of the plant.

But somehow the petroleum is getting in. The EPA knows this because it's in the sludge – the finished product of the treatment plant.

"About 2 percent hydrocarbons, 2 percent of oil or petroleum products," said Tom Eaton, EPA. "That's very high for sludge."

The Fort is quick to point out that just because petroleum product is going into the plant, it doesn't mean it's making its way into Puget Sound.

But both the EPA and state Ecology Department are concerned enough about the amount of petroleum in the system, they are asking for immediate changes.

Another part of the frustration is that Fort Lewis has a different form of contract or permit with the federal government. They are not required to meet the same standards as a normal city, such as Seattle.

The EPA says they are not in actual violation of the permit, but they would like to tighten that system up.

KING 5 received a statement from Fort Lewis, saying: "We have been partnering the State Ecology and EPA to improve our pre-treatment plan because we think it's the right thing to do." Signed by Paul Steucke, Chief, Fort Lewis Environmental Division.

Steucke said they have a strong environmental program and they want to comply, and they dispute almost everything that was said by the workers.