I move out of the marina for the summer and on to the State Marine Park
mooring., having purchased an annual moorage pass for $133. I plan to visit
a dozen or so this summer..

As I have previously mentioned in earlier posts, there has been a general
lack of pumpout facilities in this large body of water.

The first thing I did upon arriving at the Twanoh Marine Park, was to dingy
over to the 'off-shore' pumpout float. I found that they had repaired the
manual pumps but the ratty old hose was still missing the valve and suction
nipple / fitting adaptors. When I operated the pump to determine if it would
pump, water started gushing out from under the loosely fastened manhole
cover on the tank. Obviously the tank was full to the top, possibly from a
leak in the tank or the hose going ashore. Not much chance that there was
any sewage in this float tank since the pumps and hoses have been out of
service for 3 years.

I went to find the park ranger. He knew me from the past seasons, '02, '03
when I had quized him about the lack of repairs to the system.. This time
he told me that the pump out had been repaired.. I informed him that it was
not fuctional for pumpout since there is no way to connect to the deck
fitting without the valve or suction nipple, etc. I was as if he really had
no understanding of how it was suppose to work. I explained that without a
valve on the end of the hose, the sewage would spill from the hose when it
was removed for the deck fitting or left laying on the float deck and even
more would spill if coiled on the rack.

From there, I went to my trusty keyboard and sent an email to the state
parks "pumpout" wizards. This first polite email was ignored for over a week
and my second email was less polite and more to the point and I may have
mentioned the "Hood Canal Eco System", or the "Media"..

I got a response within 24 hours indicating that they had located the
necassary money for complete and proper repairs in a special fund set aside
for the pumpout facitlities. And that they would tell the resident park
ranger how to access these funds for these repairs.

Dam! I hate to do things this way. But I also hate being ignore when I have
been complaining for 3 years. Well at least I know what to tell the other
rangers at other parks when they claim they don't have the funds to repair
the often broken pumps.

Steve
s/v Good Intentions