Author: Erin Elizabeth

An equipment failure at one of the largest wastewater treatment plants in the northwestern part of Washington State is dumping millions of gallons of untreated raw sewage into Puget Sound. An equipment failure at 2 a.m. on Thursday at the West Point Treatment Plant was the immediate cause. Had they not bypassed the plant, the wastewater would have backed up into the plant and either destroyed or damaged the equipment. Officials are still investigating the cause of the equipment failure but it did happen during heavy rains that coincided with a very high tide. The raw wastewater was gushing into the...

On Sunday at least 188,000 people were evacuated from several Northern California counties due to damage at the Oroville Dam (which provides flood control for the region and is located about 75 miles north of Sacramento). At this time the nation’s tallest dam remains intact but the emergency spillway (one of two spillways), which helps to ensure that the water does not rush over the top of the dam when the levels are high, has begun to erode. Therefore, cities and counties near Lake Oroville had a mandatory evacuation due to fears it could endanger those communities living downstream....