Time to widen ban on phosphate
Fifteen years ago, good sense rolled like a wave throughout the Spokane River drainage, producing a daring but environmentally necessary ban on laundry detergents that contained phosphates.
In the short term it forced consumers to shift to non-phosphate alternatives for their washday needs, but they accepted the inconvenience as responsible citizens. The main opposition came from southern Idaho’s phosphate mining industry.
Among local governmental leaders there was some political foot-dragging, and the reaction was piecemeal. One by one, however, cities and counties in Eastern Washington and the Idaho Panhandle adopted the ban.
At the time, dishwasher detergents were exempted because there was no feasible alternative on the retail shelves. That’s changing, and it’s time to take the second step.
Spokane County, one of the last entities in the region to adopt the ban in 1990, is pondering a prohibition of phosphates in dishwasher soap and in fertilizers.
Phosphates, despite various positive uses, are a nuisance when they enter a waterway like the Spokane River. They are a rich nutrient to life forms, such as algae, that consume oxygen, produce unsightly and sometimes toxic blooms and deplete fish life.
Nobody understands the consequences better than people who live at Lake Spokane where algae growth nourished by Spokane sewage discharges was so bad in the 1970s that it led to a lawsuit. A lawsuit that ultimately established a limit on the amount of phosphates allowed to reach Lake Spokane and forced the city of Spokane to meet stringent sewage treatment standards.
As the community grows, so does the pressure it puts on its waterways. State and federal environmental agencies are insisting that Spokane do an even better job of improving water quality in the Spokane River. At stake are the community’s opportunities for growth and economic development, not to mention taxpayers’ pocketbooks.
An ill-advised thread in the county’s latest conversations suggests that the ban on dishwasher phosphates should not happen just yet. Rather, it should be held back as a bargaining chip with the state Department of Ecology and the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
That would be foolish. In the past, Spokane moved to address Spokane River water quality because of a lawsuit. Now, dischargers of treated wastewater are motivated primarily by pressure from DOE and EPA.
If the community really wants to make a good impression, it will take positive steps – such as an expanded phosphate ban – not under duress but because it’s the right thing to do.