Washougal dental practice sues city over raw sewage that entered practice’s basement

A Washougal dental practice is suing the city of Washougal for nearly $4.9 million, alleging a malfunction at a newly installed wastewater pump station sent raw sewage into the practice’s basement in late 2025, damaging equipment and forcing the business to close for more than a month. The lawsuit, filed this month by Dr. Justin Cochell and Brisemerhud LLC, alleges the city put the Dick Beaver Park pump station into operation despite unresolved problems with its alarms, controls and other equipment. Brisemerhud owns the building at 1403 C St., where Cochell has operated Washougal Family Dental and served as the practice’s dentist since 2012. “This was a preventable event that caused, and continues to cause, substantial hardship to Washougal Family Dental,” said Joseph Winsby, an attorney with Portland-based Chenoweth Law Group. The complaint states that the city “failed to exercise reasonable care in the design, review, testing, commissioning, acceptance, operation, inspection, monitoring, maintenance, and control of the pump station and related wastewater infrastructure” and “as a direct and proximate result of the city’s negligence, plaintiff’s property was damaged.” The city has not yet responded to the lawsuit in court and declined to comment to The Columbian. “Because this matter is now in litigation, the city cannot comment on the lawsuit or provide additional information at this time,” city spokesperson Michele Loftus said. “The city’s attorneys are reviewing the complaint and preparing the city’s response, which is expected to be filed within the next couple of weeks.” According to the complaint, the city installed a new wastewater system, including a two-pump station, at Dick Beaver Park near the dental office in late 2024 and brought it online in January 2025. The plaintiffs allege the city began operating the station before completing required commissioning work, issuing a completion certificate or resolving numerous “punch-list” items, and that operators had become accustomed to disregarding some low-level alarms because of false alarms caused by defective float controls. “The city also failed to verify that alarms from the pump station were properly communicated to city operators and allowed portions of the alarm system to remain disconnected after the pump station was placed into service,” the complaint states. “As a result, warnings that should have alerted city personnel to developing problems were not properly communicated, addressed, or corrected before the sewage event occurred.” At 4:48 p.m. Nov. 18, 2025, a high wet-well alarm sounded, continuing for roughly 16 hours until the control panel was reset the following morning, according to the complaint. The plaintiffs allege that resetting the panel caused both pumps to operate simultaneously, discharging more wastewater than the existing 15-inch gravity sewer on C Street could carry and sending raw sewage through basement fixtures and into the dental office. The plaintiffs allege that sewage contaminated the finished basement, which contained a dental laboratory, inventory, a staff locker room, a break room and bathroom, specialized dental equipment, and furnace and HVAC equipment. They also allege that sewage entered the HVAC system and was transported throughout the building. The complaint lists $129,205.64 in lost property and equipment, $433,221.85 in remediation and cleanup costs incurred so far, 40 days of complete business closure, roughly $11,000 to $12,000 in lost income per day, $477,204 in past lost income, and more than $3.87 million in anticipated future lost income, lost patients and damage to the practice’s professional reputation. The plaintiffs say the practice remains at reduced capacity because it has not replaced its dental laboratory, break room and bathroom, and has lost equipment. The suit also names several companies — including Consor Engineers, Colf Construction, Sable Electric, Industrial Systems Inc. and OCD Automation Inc. — that were involved in the pump station project, but concludes that the city is responsible because it owned and directed the implementation of the project, accepted the work and assumed operation of the facility.

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