Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

County To List Businesses That Store Chemicals Information Will Help Protect Aquifer From Contamination

Spokane County health officials want to know what chemicals are stored above ground so they know how to protect the drinking water underground.

The county health district plans to spend $60,000 in federal money this year to start a list of businesses storing chemicals that could damage the Spokane-Rathdrum Aquifer. Eventually, those 4,000 to 7,000 businesses will be inspected every three years to make sure the chemicals are handled properly.

The businesses themselves may have to pay for the inspections.

The information is required under state drinking-water laws, which also require plans for regulating and handling spills. Those plans won’t be written until after the inventory is completed, said Stan Miller, director of the regional Aquifer Protection Agency.

The state requires the information from water purveyors. But there are more than 30 purveyors in the county, and in places, their wells are so close together, some businesses would be surveyed by two or three water districts.

“It’s easier for us to do it regionally than to have each of them going out and doing it themselves,” Miller said.

Similar information already is gathered by fire departments and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. But those inventories don’t consider risk to drinking water, said John Wiley of the health district.

Fire departments worry about explosions or toxic clouds, not whether chemicals are stored in double-walled containers.

The EPA reports only include quantities so large that if the chemicals spilled, “we’re talking disaster,” Wiley said.

For instance, dry-cleaners only report to the EPA if they keep more than 743 gallons of cleaning fluid on hand. But a five-gallon spill of the fluid could contaminate a well for six months or more, Miller said.