County seeks lower water quality levels

Spokane County commissioners decided Tuesday to sign a petition asking the Washington Department of Ecology to accept lower water quality standards for the Spokane River than those being proposed under a state environmental analysis.

Ecology has been conducting an analysis of the total maximum daily load of oxygen the river should carry between the Idaho state line and Lake Spokane, a reservoir also known as Long Lake. But commissioners are concerned the results of that study would preclude the county from building a new wastewater treatment plant because the pollution limits would be tougher than they could meet.

Sewage treatment plant effluent and other discharges into the river deplete oxygen levels.

But without a new plant, Spokane County Utilities Director Bruce Rawls predicts the county will run out of sewage treatment capacity by 2009.

That’s why the county agreed to participate in a “use attainability analysis,” which looks at local conditions and considers what water quality is necessary to protect existing and attainable river uses.

The analysis is being funded by the county and other polluters who claim that Washington state standards shouldn’t apply to the Spokane River because it’s different than rivers on the West Side, which include salmon habitats.

Salmon are prevented from spawning in the Spokane River because of dams downstream, but trout are considered under the use attainability analysis, Rawls said.

Commissioners Phil Harris and Kate McCaslin said Tuesday that they would sign onto the use attainability analysis despite the fact that they haven’t seen the final study yet. Commissioner Todd Mielke wasn’t present.

“My perspective is there isn’t even a question we should be a party to the petition,” McCaslin said, adding that the water quality standards being used by the state would create great financial hardship for county residents.

“It’s not just about the discharges, it’s about all the people who pay for that,” she said.

If the county can’t discharge more effluent into the river, other options would cost the county hundreds of millions of dollars more, Rawls said.

The analysis itself isn’t cheap. It will cost about $500,000, with the city of Spokane and Spokane County paying the bulk of the bill because they produce the majority of the effluent flow into the river, said Rawls.

Spokane County’s share will be between $75,000 and $100,000, he said.

Other financial contributors to the study include the Liberty Lake Water and Sewer District and Inland Empire Paper, an affiliate of Cowles Publishing Co., which owns The Spokesman-Review.

Department of Ecology Spokeswoman Jani Gilbert said that UAAs, although permitted under the federal Clean Water Act, are very rare. This would be the first in the state, Gilbert said.

“There would be a public hearing and a pretty substantial public comment period before we would change the regulations in order to change the water quality standard,” she said.