It now has the distinction of becoming the first city in the state to achieve 100 percent reuse of its reclaimed wastewater.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Over the last decade, Yelm was been faced with rapid growth, limited water resources and the need to protect the declining salmon runs in the Nisqually River. These daunting pressures would be enough to throw any small city into a state of crisis, but Yelm decided to up the environmental ante and completely eradicate wastewater discharge into the river and outlying areas. Because the Nisqually is one of the few rivers left in Washington that has water clean enough to sustain native chum salmon runs, the STEP discharge permit was only temporary. Then in 1993 the city began working with Skillings Connolly, a civil, transportation and environmental engineering firm based in Lacey, to help achieve its goals. The passage of Washington s Reclaimed Water Act in 1992, which encouraged the beneficial use of reclaimed water and authorized the development of pilot projects to cities that wanted to pioneer wastewater reclamation, was a saving grace.