It is ironic, to say the least, that a city hoping to revive its Marine Science Center continually leaks raw sewage into the very waterway whose health it aims to promote.

A “small” leak of 3,000 gallons of effluence found its way from a city pipe into Liberty Bay this weekend. City officials can actually call it “small” because it doesn’t hold a sheet of toilet paper to the “catastrophic” 350,000- and 553,000-gallon sewage spills that unraveled there in the past.

But still, it is 3,000 gallons of nasty stuff.

Following the aforementioned spills, and another 1,000 gallons of raw sewage leaking into the bay, a telemetry system was installed for the near shore pipeline. How well does it work when residents and not the system itself, must alert the city?

It seems that Poulsbo is biding its time until the line is abandoned altogether and the Bond Road Pump Station is installed. But it might just be a case of overlooking several hundred thousand gallons of sewage as well.

Something always pops up. The line cracked, the power was out, a seal failed, too much bran. The excuses have been coming for years on this problem and obviously not enough has been done to fix it as needed.

Meanwhile, salmon are making their long journey back to the bay’s headwaters and Dogfish Creek to spawn and complete their life cycle. It’s odd that the Washington State Department of Transportation crews worked so hard to beat the environmental fish window and get new culverts built under State Route 305 only to have the city turn around and dump more sewage in the water.

No, it wasn’t on purpose. It never has been, but it shouldn’t be too much for North Kitsap residents to ask that the city take care of one of the region’s most beautiful waterways.

Of course it isn’t.