Workers from Phoenix Environmental are onsite at the Port Townsend Boat Yard this week, pumping out 60 underground stormwater vaults that serve to capture sediment and toxins, before releasing runoff into Port Townsend Bay.
Pumping of the vaults hasn’t been done in nearly 15 years, and in that time a significant accumulation of sediment has occurred. Since the Port has made significant investments to reduce pollutants upstream (downspout filtering, etc), cleaning out the stormwater storage system will allow us to take accurate, baseline measurements across the system.
As part of our ongoing environmental stewardship, we’ll continue to test the water in the vaults to monitor how often these vaults should be cleaned in the future.
The noise produced by these trucks pumping out the storm drains was extremely loud & I am lucky that I had ear protection handy to wear during this process as I was working nearby. It was extremely difficult to work even with proper ear protection.
It seems hypocritical to be done by and for “environmental” purposes to protect the water while producing harmful noise pollution. Did you hear the trucks? Is there another way/company to pump the storm drains?