INDUSTRY NEWS

King County is suing Ace American Insurance Company for more than $20 million in costs incurred from repairing an underground conveyance pipe at its south Magnolia wastewater storage facility due to a rejected insurance claim and subsequent snubbing for more than two years.

The county has a consent decree with the Environmental Protection Agency and Washington Department of Ecology to reduce stormwater and sewage overflows into Puget Sound.

King County’s South Magnolia Combined Sewer Overflow Control Project began construction in 2014, and involved running a 3,000-foot-long underground conveyance pipe from a diversion structure on 32nd Avenue West to the Magnolia Wet Weather Storage Facility just east of Smith Cove Park. The goal was keeping untreated wastewater out of Elliott Bay during stormwater surges.