WANTED! BOATERS! YOUR INPUT ON PUMPOUT STATIONS NEEDED It has come to our attention through member input at the Boat Show and meetings, that some boaters have had the unfortunate occasional experience of finding a pumpout station not working or open to the public. Upon inquiry to State Parks, we found out that we have over 70 pumpout facilities in the State that have received government grants for installation. For the most part, these granted pumpout facilities are required to be maintained and open to the public. A complete explanation and history of the State pumpout program provided below as prepared by Dona Wolfe of State Parks. Also is a listing of government funded (granted) pumpout facilities. The State Parks website has a listing of MOST pumpout facilities in the State, either granted or not. http://www.parks.wa.gov/moorage/pumpout/locations/ The bottom line is if you find any pumpout facility not working, State Parks needs to know about it. Although they have no jurisdiction over privately funded pumpout facilities, they would still like to know about any pumpout facility with a problem. If any of the equipment on the list of locations is not working, Parks will contact the operators to make sure that their equipment is fixed and maintained. If the equipment is not funded by grants, Parks would still like to know because they would then be able to see if the operator would like funding to fix or update their equipment. Please report any non-working pumpout facilities to: Dona.Wolfe@parks.wa.gov (PUMPOUTS 101) by Dona Wolfe Here is the general story. In 1988, the legislature granted some funding to provide boater sewages disposal pumpout stations in the state. There was funding available for only one round of grants. The last equipment in that group was placed in 1993. In 1993-94 the Federal Government developed a Clean Vessel Program to place boat sewage disposal facilities throughout the United States. The funding is from the Wallop-Breaux account and averages about 10 M per year for the whole country. Washington has been very successful in receiving funding has been able to place facilities at 76 locations throughout the state (see below list). Some of these locations have more than one pumpout located in their marinas. The first, state funded, group of pumpouts may or may not have equipment currently in service. The average useful life of this pumping equipment is 5 years, although I do know that some of this equipment is still in service. The operators of these pumpouts must provide the service free to all persons who want to use the equipment. The Clean Vessel Program funded equipment has the following requirements: 1. The equipment must be available to the public during normal business hours. 2. The operator may not charge more than $5 per pumpout. This means that we actually have more private owner participation than the old program had and this was a goal of the Clean Vessel Program. A private marina may eligible to have equipment as long as there is a way for the public to access the equipment, again during normal business hours. That means if the marina office is open from, say, 7 AM to 4 PM, the public must be able to access the equipment during those hours. But the marina would not be required to make the equipment from 4 PM to 7 AM when the office is closed. In practice, at least some of the private marinas do keep the equipment available 24 hrs per day anyway. If the marina is closed down, which has occurred during snowy weather, the pumpout is also closed down. And during the winters it is acceptable for the marinas to close the equipment down until the weather improves. Silverdale is one that is shut down all winter. Also the marina operator can charge for the service of pumping out a boat but the amount per pumpout cannot exceed $5 without a special ruling from the director and the amount must remain the same no matter how much is pumped out. The charge of $5 would be for a 10-gallon holding tank or a 50-gallon holding tank. The majority of marinas choose not to have any charges. There are also pumpout locations where other funds have been used to place equipment, for example the IAC funding, internally funded equipment at some public ports, and, of course, totally privately funded equipment in some marinas. The list that is in the Puget Soundkeeper book and in our Adventures in Boating Handbook includes the pumpout locations where our program has provided the funding and any other location that has a pumpout that allows public access that we (Parks) know about. We try to keep this information available as a public service through these publications, but if it is not a location we have funded, we (Parks) have no way of knowing what is going on and if the equipment is working. Parks require of all of our grantees that they advise us when a pumpout is going to be down for repairs for longer than 2 days, although we do not ask that they tell us if it is closed for the winter season. We have no way of actually checking that the equipment is working well except for the public advising us of pumpouts that are not working. In general, however, it seems that pumpouts are working better as equipment has improved over the past 15 years. There are still problems involved with some pumpouts. Part of this may be the actually equipment - for example, in some locations Keco pumpouts to very well, but in other locations they have problems and can be unreliable. SaniSailor pumpouts seem to work best overall and other types vary according to usage, salt or fresh water, height of drop from upland system, etc. In addition, there is still a continuing practice of blaming the other guy - i.e. the operator says the boaters do not operate the pumpouts correctly, are not careful to keep damaging materials (like hair pins, safety pins, nuts, bolts etc.) out of the pumpout and also attempt to pump things like diapers through the equipment. In addition, many boaters seem not to take care of the attachments and nozzles and these are constantly falling overboard and being lost. This means that when the next boater comes along they will not be able to use the pumpout at all. Mostly this seems to be a cause of lack of knowledge and we published a flyer several years ago (it is also summarized on our web page) that helps explain to boaters how to use different types of pumpouts and what they can do to help keep the equipment functioning well. The boaters are not always at fault. Some operators do not maintain the equipment properly and do not make repairs in a timely manner. If we are told about equipment that boaters are having problems with, we can contact the operators and hopefully expedite their repair. We can work directly with our grantees but we also will contact other marinas if we are told that the pumpout is not working at a minimum to let them know there is a problem and also to let the operator know that funding is available if they would like to purchase new and better equipment for their marina. Sometimes this even works. Pumpouts available in the general lock/Lake Washington area. There are publicly funded pumpouts at Fisherman's Terminal near the locks, the Center for Wooden Boats south end of Lake Union, Harbor Village north end of Lake Washington, Shilshole Bay Marina on the Sound outside of the locks, Carrillon Point Marina and Mercer Island Marina on Lake Washington. In addition, there is a pumpout at Morrison's North Star Marina near the I-5 bridge. If any of the equipment on our list of locations is not working, we would like to know and will contact the operators to make sure that their equipment is fixed and maintained. If the equipment is not on our list, we would still like to know because we would then be able to see if they would like funding to fix or update their equipment. -Prepared by Dona Wolfe, State Parks Clean Vessel Program Funded Pumpouts 1993-Present Beacon Rock State Park, Vancouver Blake Island State Park, Manchester Cap Sante Boat Haven, Anacortes Carillon Point Marina, Kirkland Center for Wooden Boats, Seattle Central Ferry Park, Pomeroy Chief Timothy Park, Clarkston Chinook Landing Marina, Tacoma City of Bainbridge Island, Bainbridge City of Des Moines Marina, Des Moines City of Langley, Langley Columbia Park, Richland Crow's Nest Marina, Tacoma Dockton Park, Vashon Island Driftwood Keys Marina, Hansville Eagle Harbor, Bainbridge Island Elliot Bay Fuel Dock, Seattle Fort Flagler State Park, Nordland Foss Waterway Marina, Tacoma Gig Harbor Marina, Gig Harbor Grays Harbor, Westport Hanson Harbor, Coulee Dam Harbor Village Marina, Seattle Island Marine Center, Lopez Island Jarrell Cove Marina, Shelton Jarrell Cove State Park, Shelton Jeresich City Dock, Gig Harbor John Wayne Marina, Sequim Kettle Falls Marina, Coulee Dam King County Parks, Mercer Island Makah Tribal Moorage, Neah Bay Manson Bay Marina, Manson Marine Service Center, Anacortes Oak Harbor Marina, Oak Harbor Old Alcohol Plant Marina, Port Hadlock Orando Park, Orando Penrose Point State Park, Lakebay Picks Cove Marina, Tacoma Pleasant Harbor Marina, Brinnon Point Roberts Marina, Point Roberts Port Angeles Marina, Port Angeles Port Ludlow Marina, Port Ludlow Port of Allyn, Lynch Cove, Allyn Port of Allyn, North Bay, Allyn Port of Anacortes, Anacortes Port of Bellingham, Blaine Harbor Port of Bellingham, Squalicum Harbor Port of Bremerton, Bremerton Port of Brownsville, Brownsville Port of Douglas County, Wenatchee Port of Edmonds, Edmonds Port of Everett, Everett Port of Friday Harbor, Friday Harbor Port of Kennewick, Kennewick Port of Kingston, Kingston Port of Olympia, Swantown, Olympia Port of Poulsbo, Poulsbo Port of Seattle, Bell Harbor, Seattle Port of Seattle, Fishermans Terminal, Seattle Port of Seattle, Harbor Island, Seattle Port of Silverdale, Silverdale Port of Skagit County, La Conner Port Orchard Marine Railway, Port Orchard Port Townsend Boat Haven, Port Townsend Poseidons, Gig Harbor Quileute Tribal Marina, Forks Roche Harbor Resort, Roche Harbor Semiahmoo Marina, Blaine Shelton Marina and Yacht Club, Shelton Skyline Marina, Anacortes Spring Canyon, Coulee Dam Ten Mile Station, Coulee Dam Two Rivers Marina, Davenport Tyee Marina, Tacoma West Bay Marina, Olympia State Program Funded 1988-1992 . These are older units and may no longer be in service: Olympia City Parks, Percival Landing, Olympia Alderbrook Lodge, Union Lakeshore Marina, Chelan Tacoma Metro Parks, Tacoma Port of Clarkston, Clarkston Port of Ilwaco, Ilwaco Port of Peninsula, Ocean Park Port of Whitman County, Colfax Stuart Island State Park, Reid Harbor, San Juans Coronet Bay State Park, Deception Pass Port Orchard Marina, Port Orchard Seven Bays Marina, Lake Roosevelt Other state park pumpouts not funded through Parks program Twanoh State Park, Union Twenty-five Mile Creek, Chelan Other Publicly funded that Parks knows about, but not funded by State Parks Elochoman Slough, Columbia River Port of Kalama, Kalama Port of Camas/Washougal Old Mill Park, Chelan Home | About RBAW | Boater News | Events Calendar Our Members | You Can Help | Join RBAW | Contact Us Design & Development by Dan Larsen