Lake Stevens Sewer District celebrates 50 years

BY PAM STEVENS | EDITOR We’ve come a long way baby
“In Lake Stevens clean water is one of our most precious natural resources. Yet every time we flush a toilet, pour oil down the drain or clean with strong household chemicals, we contaminate our supply. Before wastewater can be released into our waterways, it must go through a process called sewage treatment to be decontaminated.” This is where the Lake Stevens Sewer District comes in to play.

The Lake Stevens Sewer District (LSSD) celebrated its 50th anniversary last Thursday by hosting an open house where folks could stop by their offices and enjoy some refreshments and get the scoop on where they started and what the future holds for the people of Lake Stevens and the services the Sewer District provides.

“With the 50 year celebration we invited the public to come in and see how the Sewer District has grown and why it is such a pivotal piece of Lake Stevens,” Tonya Christofferson, Deputy Manager of Administration said. “I think people will be surprised at everything we do here.”

The Sewer District was started in 1957 and has been providing sewer service all of these years. They added collection and treatment in 1965.

Darwin Smith, General Manager of Lake Stevens Sewer District has been working there for over 28 years and has seen many changes in its long history.

“When I came here this was a small local utility association, almost a rural homeowners association utility, even though it was a district, and I watched that change to a full fledged utility thanks to everybody involved,” Smith said.

Smith is grateful for the community and all of its involvement over the past 50 years who have helped make LSSD what an example it is today. He says that there are no other communities that he knows of that work so closely with their cities.

“This is about the only community in the state that has accomplished what they have while working closely with the city and I am proud of that,” Smith said. “It is a model throughout the state.”

Smith adds that if it weren’t for the input of the customers and all of those citizens who work closely with the LSSD all of this would not have been possible.

“The customers, constituents and people are this district,” he said. “They have been a major part of making LSSD what it is today in terms of wastewater and environmental clean-up.”

City Administrator Jan Berg is grateful for all that Smith and everyone else at the Sewer District has accomplished over the past 50 years.

“Due to the pro-active vision and planning of Darwin Smith and the Lake Stevens Sewer Commissioners, we are able to meet the challenges of protecting the environment and providing quality sewer service for our community,” Berg said.

LSSD serves over 6,690 acres of that 5,690 acres are outside of the city limits. One thousand acres surrounds Lake Stevens.

The LSSD has three elected Commissioners: Jack Hatlen, George Wood and Jim Mitchell. Mitchell was one of the forces behind starting the Lake Stevens Sewer District fifty years ago and continues to be a very active part of the sewer district and its decision making progress.

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