Vancouver, Wash. – For the 14th consecutive year, the Salmon Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant received the Wastewater Treatment Plant Outstanding Performance award from the Washington State Department of Ecology.

“Operators faced unprecedented challenges in 2020 and used impressive creativity and shared expertise to manage wipes, gloves, and masks clogging pipes and pumps, and numerous other challenges,” wrote Ecology’s Water Quality Program Manager Vincent McGowan in a July 23 letter. “This is the fourteenth consecutive year the Salmon Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant received this award. Your excellent record is a credit to the dedicated operators who are responsible for running this award-winning plant.”

The award is granted to those treatment plants that achieve 100% compliance with the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit including maintaining effluent discharge limits, monitoring, and reporting requirements and overall operational demands placed on the facility from various community- and weather-related influences.

“We take pride in these awards, but receiving an award for 2020 is even more special,” said Wastewater Operations Manager Travis Capson. “Our staff was on-site seven days a week and responded to all afterhours emergencies through the entirety of quarantines, shutdowns and other pandemic-related closures. There wasn’t a single missed day of work during that time, and I am incredibly proud of this team.”

The Salmon Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant is one of 125 treatment plants across Washington to receive this award.

Learn more about wastewater treatment in Clark County by visiting our website: https://clark.wa.gov/public-works/salmon-creek-wastewater-treatment-plant. You can also find real-time information on the Public Works Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts, and on NextDoor.

###