UTILITY NOTES: Mystery brown water in Fauntlee Hills; followup on Puget Ridge’s Saturday power outage

Two West Seattle utility notes:

MYSTERY BROWN WATER: Via text, a reader report: “Just want to report brown water to multiple homes in the Fauntlee Hills area (39th and 40th Ave SW). Called SPU. They said no fire hydrant testing in the area and are sending this to the water quality inspector to investigate.” Hydrant testing has been the most common cause of brown water – stirring up sediment (rust) in the lines – lately, but certainly isn’t the only possibility, which is why reporting it to 206-386-1800 is important, every time.

SATURDAY OUTAGE FOLLOWUP: More than 300 Seattle City Light customers, mostly on Puget Ridge, lost power for more than an hour and a half on Saturday night, as reported here. Shortly after the start of the outage, SFD responded to a “vault fire” call in the 6700 block of West Marginal Way. Today when we followed up, SCL’s Jenn Strang confirmed the two were related – the vault fire actually led to the wider outage: “We de-energized the additional 319 customers for a brief period out of an abundance of caution while SFD and City Light crews safely entered the area. SFD confirmed there was no active fire, but smoke was coming from the vault. The cause was determined to be a fuse in the underground system.”

7 Replies to "UTILITY NOTES: Mystery brown water in Fauntlee Hills; followup on Puget Ridge's Saturday power outage"

  • KP August 28, 2023 (2:19 pm)

    Whew not just my house with the brown/orange water in Fauntlee hills! I’m on 41st. 

  • GAC August 28, 2023 (2:44 pm)

    We’re on SW Henderson & 40th SW and saw a fire truck and fireman working on the hydrant across the street from us at about 9:30am.  Still have brown water here.

  • Dexter August 28, 2023 (3:26 pm)

    Speaking of utilities, I had my yard waste bin out for collection today. I heard the truck make the pickup, and went out 10 minutes later and the bin was gone. The neighbor’s bin was still there. Mine was an old one with green body and beige lid, maybe it’s being replaced? It wasn’t damaged. 

    • WSB August 28, 2023 (3:28 pm)

      Happened to us about a month ago with our undamaged recycling bin. No explanation. Report it to SPU and you should get a new one – though not necessarily immediately (we had to nag a couple times).

    • Rooster August 28, 2023 (4:51 pm)

      I’ve had this happen a few times. If the bin cracks and falls into the hopper they will not retrieve it. I had to call for replacement a couple of times. The older bins do seem to crack at the point where the lift bar attached. 

  • Gator August 28, 2023 (8:52 pm)

    Brown water in Fauntlee crest 

  • Ashley August 29, 2023 (9:37 am)

    We still have it on 40th and spoke to SPU and they requested a flush last night but it wasn’t done so said they requested it again today on 41st and it should be cleared up by tonight. If not they said to report it again at the number posted above. Press 0 for operator. 

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