RE Sources is still pushing the City of Bellingham to halt its $65 million plan to upgrade the aging sewage incinerators at Post Point, and instead shift to landfilling as a temporary, safer fix while the City studies cleaner long-term technologies.
The City has continued to pursue upgrades despite the fact that the incinerators are hindering meeting our climate goals while polluting our community. As part of the upgrade process, another decision for Post Point is playing out at the state level. The Washington Department of Ecology is finalizing a new wastewater discharge permit for the plant, and it needs to be a lot stronger than what’s currently on the table. Ecology is accepting public comment on this draft permit through August 10, 2026.
Why this draft permit isn’t strong enough
Post Point discharges treated wastewater directly into Bellingham Bay. Ecology’s draft permit modification sets new rules for how much nitrogen the plant can release, but instead of requiring a real reduction, it simply locks in the plant’s current pollution levels. This does not help us as we strive to clean up our polluted waters, and allows Post Point to continue polluting at the same rate.
As we wrote in our comment letter to Ecology: outdated wastewater treatment plants are processing contaminated wastewater that they were never designed to handle and, therefore, contributing a considerable amount of pollution to our air, land, and water. State and federal permits are the main mechanism, sometimes the only mechanism, to rein in the amount of contamination. It is important to make these permits as strong and protective as possible.
Bellingham Bay’s water quality has been declining for years, and the science points to nutrients — mainly an excess of nitrogen — as a major cause. This contributes to low oxygen levels in the Bay, which are already severe enough that state regulators classify the area as impaired. Post Point is one of the two biggest sources of that nitrogen, and unlike the Nooksack River, its nitrogen output doesn’t drop off in summer — which is exactly when the Bay’s oxygen problem is at its worst.
State law requires wastewater permits to use all known, available, and reasonable methods of prevention, control and treatment (AKART). Many wastewater facilities around the country are already meeting nitrogen and phosphorus limits far stricter than what Ecology is proposing for Post Point. So there’s no reason Post Point cannot meet lower limits using AKART. Decreasing nutrient discharge limits in the final permit is critical to restoring Bellingham Bay.
Better monitoring can lead to cleaner water
Post Point’s two incinerators burn sewage sludge and release toxic pollutants, including dioxins, PFAS, and heavy metals. The plant’s answer to a recent air quality violation has been to run the incinerators hotter and add scrubbers that pull those contaminants out of the exhaust, but that waste has to go somewhere. Right now, it gets piped back into the plant’s liquid treatment stream, where much of it isn’t treated or removed. That means some of the material captured from the exhaust will ultimately be discharged straight into the Bay — and no one is required to track it.
PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” are known to be in Post Point’s sewage sludge. The treatment plant does not completely break down PFAS but we have no idea how much PFAS is in the water the plant discharges into the Bay every day, because nothing currently requires that testing. Without baseline data, we have no way to know if upgrades to the plant make the problem worse.
What we’re asking Ecology to change
Before this permit is finalized, we’re asking Ecology to:
- Set more stringent nitrogen and phosphorus limits. The draft permit locks in current pollution levels instead of requiring reductions. Instead, the permit should require the strongest technically achievable limits: no more than 3.0 mg/L nitrogen and 0.5 mg/L phosphorus.
- Track where the toxics from burning sewage sludge end up. Right now, contaminants pulled out of the incinerator exhaust get piped back into the plant and may end up discharged into the Bay, untested and unregulated. Please include required monitoring for this waste stream in the final permit.
- Require PFAS testing. “Forever chemicals” aren’t currently tested for in what’s discharged into Bellingham Bay. Ecology needs to require PFAS testing so we know what’s going into our water.
- Close the loophole that lets pollution slip between different releases. Air, water, and solid waste at Post Point are regulated separately, so contaminants can move from one waste stream to another without ever being counted. This permit needs to require full pollution tracking across the whole facility.
Here’s how you can add your voice
Ecology is accepting public comment on this permit through August 10, 2026. Send your message now and ask them to strengthen the permit before it’s finalized.
This is a separate action from our earlier action alerts to the City of Bellingham about Post Point, but it’s part of the same effort: making sure Post Point stops polluting the Bay, our neighborhoods, and our community..
Read our full comment letter to Ecology here, and catch up on our push to stop the incinerator upgrades here.