I resent my neighborhood being called a “hip, lock-side borough.” Also this is not reassuring.

Ballard, which sits just northwest of downtown, is representative of the city’s vulnerabilities. It is both low-lying and served by an outdated system that combines sewage and stormwater drainage. Polluted runoff shed by neighboring hills frequently floods this hip, lock-side borough. With pipes too small to manage, the system is forced to offload a mix of rainwater and sewage into nearby Lake Union—a serious public health and environmental hazard.