written by: Mary Bruno, Vashon-Maury Island Groundwater Protection Committee

This is the second in a monthly series of guest blog posts that Mary will be sharing about water quality topics that the Groundwater Protection Committee is working on on the islands.

Update, as of January 28, 2021: King County has decided to contract with Honey Bucket rather than the Eagles club, to handle waste for the Vashon’s low-income RV owners. Currently, five local RV owners have expressed interest in County vouchers for free pump outs. Per terms of the new deal, Honey Bucket will make monthly visits to the Island and charge the County $195 per pump out. The Honey Bucket starts February 3. 

Vashon’s RV waste dumping problem has been solved. For now, at least. So said  John Taylor, King County’s Director of Local Services, at the October 28 meeting of the Vashon-Maury Island Groundwater Protection Committee. Barring any last-minute hiccups, a new Island-based service that offers free pump-outs for low-income RV owners kicks off in November.

If you didn’t know that Vashon was staring down a potential RV waste dumping problem, pull up a chair.

Way back in March, reports about someone offloading RV septic waste into a storm drain in the IGA parking lot began filtering into Vashon’s Emergency Operations Center. This kind of illegal disposal endangers human and environmental health. The untreated sewage flows from the IGA storm drain into the headwaters of Shinglemill Creek, a fragile salmon stream and one of the sources for Westside Water, which serves more than 200 North End households. It wasn’t the first time an IGA storm drain had been used as a toilet. But the new COVID lockdown threatened to make illicit dumping a more regular event.

So began the scramble for a solution that would rope in many Island organizations, and eventually the County, and make two things painfully clear: The IGA storm drain wasn’t the only septic dump site—EOC also got word of RV discharges onto beaches—and, with the governor’s Stay At Home Order in effect, there wasn’t any place on the Island for RV owners, whatever their income level, to properly pump-out. On May 4, Vashon Fire and Rescue Chief Charles Krimmert sent an SOS to John Taylor. “There are many people living and isolating in campers, trailers and recreational vehicles on the island,” wrote Chief Krimmert, in an email. “With no sewage dumping facilities on the island and another month of confinement we need the County’s help.”

At first, Taylor tried to tackle the problem himself. By September, he realized that he was “dropping the ball.” That’s when he handed things off to Ernesto (Bong) Sto. Domingo, Community Liaison with the Department of Local Services. The new assignment, recalls Bong, came with one clear directive: Make it happen. “ASAP.”

Bong faced two challenges: Find a proper disposal site, and find a way to let RV owners know about it. By the time he stepped in, a few sites had already been proposed and rejected. The County Wastewater Treatment facility on Vashon wasn’t equipped to pump-out RV septic tanks. Neither was the Quartermaster Marina, which services boats but not RVs. Retrofitting Vashon’s treatment plant would be “prohibitively expensive,” wrote Taylor, in his May 4 response to Chief Krimmert. At $200 per pump-out, so was hiring a private service to transport Island waste to the County’s treatment plant in Renton. Paying RV owners to make the trip themselves was impractical.

In the end, all roads led to Vashon’s Fraternal Order of Eagles.

The Eagles Club, which operates a campsite just off Vashon Highway, had been accepting RV waste for years. But Covid had closed down the club and the service for almost three months last spring. As soon as Bong learned about the Eagles’ facility, he approached the Club’s trustees. That was  mid-October. Two weeks later, they had a deal. The Eagles would handle the pump-outs, the County would cover the $40 (non-member) cost. First problem solved.

For problem #2, Bong turned to Vashon’s nonprofit community. Island groups that work with low-income RV owners “will receive $40 vouchers that they can distribute among their clientele,” says Bong. Vashon’s St. Vincent de Paul, United Methodist Church, School District, Food Bank and Interfaith Council to Prevent Homelessness are all on board. Once the vouchers are vetted by King County attorneys and printed, the “pilot program” to properly handle RV septic waste on Vashon will begin. Expected launch date: November 9, 2020.

Could this “pilot” solution become permanent? Is there a back up plan should the Eagles or the County ever be unable to sustain the program? It all depends, says John Taylor, whose department is used to, you know, winging it.

Consider all the current uncertainties, says Taylor. “It’s all based on anecdotal information, right? We have had people indicate that they have seen people pumping their tanks out on the ground or into storm drains. But we don’t know how many people. We don’t know what the barriers are to those individuals. So we want to try this [Eagles’ solution] out and see what kind of response we get: What the magnitude of usage is? What the costs are to the County? And then we’ll make some decisions about whether this is a short-term thing we’re going to do during COVID, or a long-term thing we might want to do just generally for water quality and to support people who are low-income and struggling.” This, he adds, is how the Department of Local Services rolls. “We’re willing to just try things and see what happens.”

Whatever happens, it seems like a textbook example of how the County and the community can problem solve together. If the pilot program succeeds, Vashon could once again become a model for other rural communities in King County.

Featured image: A storm drain leading to Shinglemill Creek. When RV waste goes down a storm drain it ends up on our creeks and beaches. photo by: Mary Bruno.