Panel to oversee sewage tank inquiry
Ten days after a city employee died in an accident at the Wastewater Treatment Plant, Spokane Mayor Jim West said he would appoint a citizens panel to oversee its investigation of the tank collapse.
“We’ve got to make sure that everybody has faith and confidence in the city’s actions,” West said Thursday.
The city’s interdepartmental review is one of three under way into the May 10 accident, which claimed the life of maintenance mechanic Mike Cmos Jr. The state Department of Labor and Industries and insurance companies are also investigating the accident, in which the 2 million-gallon digester tank’s roof apparently collapsed.
Meanwhile, the city is trying to help Cmos’ former co-workers at the treatment plant adjust to the death of the 24-year veteran city employee. Some have found it difficult to return to their jobs.
“We’re making counseling available” to the close-knit staff, West said. “Every day you go to work, you’re reminded that a good friend of many years is not there.”
The mayor said Thursday he would appoint a committee of local residents to monitor the interdepartmental review currently headed by Deputy Mayor Jack Lynch.
The city has assigned staff from its engineering, finance, fire, police and legal departments to investigate the tank roof’s apparent collapse. The investigation could take six months or more, West said.
Overseeing the city investigation will be a panel of citizens with “significant credibility in the community,” the mayor said. “It would be people who have credibility because they’re not shy about asking questions.”
The number of panelists had not been determined as of Thursday afternoon, because, West said, he had yet to “get around and ask all the people” he hopes would be willing to serve. More details about the panel could be announced next week, he added.
“I’m not going to create a political committee like this 9-11 commission,” he said.
The city is also studying whether to rebuild the damaged tank or to demolish it and build a replacement. The accident occurred in one of the facility’s three digester tanks, where anaerobic bacteria break down organic material at the end of the treatment process.
The city’s long-term plans for increasing its wastewater treatment facilities included the construction of a fourth digester tank at an estimated cost of $10 million.
Although the decision on repairing or replacing the damaged tank is months away, West said the city will build a containment structure around that tank and the others at the facility to keep any future spill from going into the nearby Spokane River.
“We are not required to (by law), but we would,” he said.
After the roof collapsed May 10, an estimated 200,000 gallons of dark, foul-smelling sludge flowed into the river. By the next day, however, tests showed the fast-flowing river was at normal levels for fecal coliform, a contaminant from human waste.