Western Front - 1971 December 3

              FRIDAY
DEC. 3rd 1971
BELLI NGH AM
RECYCLE ALL PAPER
The Leading College Newspaper in Washington State"
JIM THOMSON Bomb scare empties Old Main
Students, faculty and staff gathered near the steps of Old Main disrupted as an evacuation was ordered by College President Charles J.
Monday afternoon while authorities searched for a bomb. Classes were Flora. See details on page 6 and editorial concerning the bombing on
page 4.
New treatment plant to handle
south campus raw sewage
^
The Post Point area in South Bellingham has been selected as the
site for the new Bellingham treatment plant which will eliminate raw
sewage discharge into Bellingham by much of the city,
including half of Western.
The 32-acre site, which is located near the bay and the railroad
tracks on Harris Ave. in the Fairhaven district, will cost the city
$830,000 to purchase.
Because of a Federal requirement prohibiting water pollution such
as exists in Bellingham, the city has been instructed by a federal
environmental agency to complete the plant no later than the summer
of 1973.
According to Stuart Litzsinger, director of the physical plant and
city councilman-elect, sewage from the south half of
Western is dumped raw into the bay.
City sewer lines divide on the crest of Sehome Hill, separating
Western's sewage north and south, because there is too much for the
primary treatment plant downtown to handle, he explained .
Sewage north of this line flows into the primary treatment plant
while the southern lines empty raw into the bay along with the rest of
south Bellingham.
The following is the breakdown for discharges from campus
buildings:
Sewage Treated Mathes Hall
Bookstore Music Auditorium
EdensHall Nash Hall
Higginson Hall Old Main (north half)
Highland Hall Viking Commons
Library Viking Union
WESTERN WASHINGTON STATE
Haggard Hall
Humanities
Huxley
Old Main (south half)
Physical Plant
Ridgeway complex
Sewage Dumped Raw
Art Buildings
Birnam Wood
Bond Hall
Buchanan Towers
Carver Gym
Commissary
Fairhaven College
Litzsinger's major concern is whether the plant will be adequate
enough to serve the needs of the city in the future.
The plant, which will have the capacity to serve 66,400 people,
"may go beyond its capacity" before it is paid for, he said.
The plant must be able to expand, he added. He said that there
certainly will be a population of 60,000 people by 1990 which only
leaves about 6,000 more people who can be served.
Don Ellis, Bellingham civil engineer, said that the plant will be able
to expand beyond the 1990 projections.
"There is sufficient area where it could be changed," he added.
The total cost of building the sewage treatment plant will be about
$8 million Ellis said.
Some 48 per cent of this money will be financed by a grant from
the Environmental Protection Agency (Federal) and the State
Department of Ecology, he pointed out.
At one point, Georgie Pacific, which dumps raw sewage into the
bay, said that it was going to pay for part of the plant, but "split out
and is building a separate treatment facility," he said.
COLLEGE VOLUME 64 NUMBER 15