August 24, 2010 in City

Lawsuit over river discharges could be boon for wetland

If treatment plant stalls, zone swap offers option

• Print
• Email
• Share

A lawsuit over river discharges threatens the January 2012 startup of a new Spokane County sewage treatment plant, so officials are working on a backup.

Plan B, restoration of a wetland with treated wastewater, requires county officials to exercise many of the land-use tools in their kit – and one that doesn’t yet exist.

As part of contracts to purchase water rights and 346 acres at Saltese Flats, south of Spokane Valley, county commissioners agreed to pursue a zoning code change that would allow development rights to be transferred from one property to another.

They also agreed to initiate comprehensive plan and zone changes on behalf of the seller, Millar “Bud” Morrison II.

Morrison’s family has owned the Saltese Flats land for more than a century. Much of it was a wetland before the family drained it for farming in the early 1900s.

“It’s a fabulous wetland restoration project, and it would be terrific for the community,” county Utilities Director Bruce Rawls said in an interview earlier this year.

Morrison has agreed to donate land for a visitor center named after his mother, Doris Morrison, who died several years ago at 103.

If the county gets a Spokane River discharge permit for its new $167 million treatment plant in time to prevent a Spokane Valley construction moratorium, Saltese Flats “becomes sort of our insurance policy for the future,” Rawls said.

Growth eventually may require more river discharge capacity than state or federal regulators will grant. Plans call for a smaller wetland project, using natural water, if the state grants a river discharge permit in time.

The county’s agreement with Morrison notes commissioners must follow all the usual land-use procedures and can’t guarantee the outcome.

Subject to completion of the changes, the county has a deal to pay $1.1 million for approximately 346 acres and $438,000 for the right to 553 acre-feet a year of surface water from Mica Peak.

The county needs the water to make its $42 million wetland project work, but Morrison can’t continue to farm without it. Instead, land-use changes spelled out in the contract would let him subdivide the remainder of his land.

“In reality, you’re taking our whole ranch,” Morrison said. “If the contract derails, the whole thing falls apart. The contingencies are critically important.”

Transferring development rights would allow the 69-year-old rancher to build 34 more houses than otherwise would have been permitted – and without waiting years for the area to be designated for urban development.

If the county buys more of Morrison’s land, he could transfer additional development rights – up to 42 homes.

County Planning Director John Pederson said rights are transferred in some Western Washington counties to preserve open space in exchange for denser development elsewhere. A property can never be developed if its development rights are transferred to another property.

The properties don’t have to be contiguous or under common ownership.

Under the county’s deal with Morrison, a string of dominoes must fall for him to achieve the housing density he wants. Commissioners also must change the zoning on the 346 acres they purchased as well as on the 212 Morrison wants to develop.

The proposed rights-transfer ordinance started out broader, but was narrowed to serve only publicly owned projects.

Planning Commissioner Jack Miller expressed concern last month about the potential for increasing densities in rural areas.

Planner Steve Davenport said the planning staff shared that concern. He recommended narrowing the focus to allow more time for public review of a more comprehensive ordinance.

The current draft limits development-rights transfers to publicly owned wastewater or stormwater projects on at least 40 acres, in one of five land-use designations: large-tract agricultural, small-tract agricultural, forest land, rural traditional and rural conservation.

Even before the ordinance was narrowed, Planning Commissioner Anthony Carollo objected to changing public policy for the benefit of one person. But Pederson said accommodations sometimes are necessary for public facilities.

The county Planning Commission will review the development-rights transfer proposal in a public workshop session at 9 a.m. Thursday.

Also, the commission will conduct a public hearing Sept. 16 on the proposed comprehensive plan and zone changes. Several unrelated zoning proposals also are on the agenda.

Both sessions will be in the basement hearing room of the county Public Works Building, 1026 W. Broadway Ave., next to the county courthouse.

Six comments on this story so far. Add yours!

• 

  liarsinnews on August 24 at 8:36 a.m.

  Its something that is not new with the Spokane county government to fail a test and have to resort to plan B. This is the same bunch of pseudo experts at the county court house that allowed toilets to be placed over our drinking water, i.e. cesspools, and septic systems for so many years. The commissioners even today, allow major polluters like Empire Paper company, owned by the Cowleses, and the likes of Washington Water Power, aka AVISTA, companies that contaminated the Spokane River in the first place, both being the worst polluters and the paper company in particular, to continue the obscene practices. Both AVISTA and the Cowles paper company should be stopped immediately any discharge into our river..

• 

  masomenos on August 24 at 1:18 p.m.

  the county commissioners have no authority over iep or avista re: discharge in the spokane. this is an issue that largely lies with federal and state regulators.
  as to the substance of the article itself, the only way that future water quantity and quality concerns can be addressed is to best utilize available methods for treatment and storage. allowing wetlands to do what they were constructed by nature to do seems a no brainer and an important step toward the sustainablity of our most precious and endangered resource. kudos spoco utilities for following through on this promising action.

• 

  Spokane_Citizen on August 24 at 5:26 p.m.

  Dick, your comments regarding this issue are completely without factual basis. At the time of growth over the Spokane aquifer (and most other aquifers near growing population centers) the law of the land not only allowed installation of septic tanks, but encouraged their use. Aquifers had not been studied, nor were there analytical techniques in existence that could even measure pollutants at the levels now regulated (indeed there wasn’t even much information about the effects of such pollutants). Spokane County, and whatever commissioners were in control at the time, would have been powerless to prevent such development, and I have absolutely no doubt that were you one of the affected parties during that era, you’d have screamed like a cheapskate banshee about the unnecessary expense associated with supporting a centralized wastewater treatment system (all of which were in their technological and regulatory infancy) to save what you would have then regarded as an unlimited resource. You’d have treated the aquifer, and the Spokane River, as merely a means to convey your bodily filth away from your residence. Don’t even presume to pretend otherwise.

  As for Spokane County now further developing the option of utilizing a wetlands as ‘Plan B’ in case they do not receive a new NPDES permit to discharge an exquisitely treated wastewater to the Spokane River (a controversial subject in the environmental and regulatory community); you would, no doubt, mercilessly criticise them them for not having developed an alternative plan should that situation arise.

  But then nobody expects anything more from the likes of the ‘Dick Adams’ of the world. They offer nothing constructive, only condemnation. No wonder elected officials learned, a great many years ago, to tune you out.

• 

  liarsinnews on August 24 at 10:51 p.m.

  Spokane citizen: How do you know what I`ve done on behalf of the citizens of Spokane? You know diddly squat. I spent untold dollars in a law suit regarding the River Park Square project and as a plaintiff in a law suit was hammered by the justice system with a judge (Cozza) who either lied or was siding with the developers and the city of Spokane when he rendered his decision. The Spokesman Review refused to tell the whole story. I attempted numerous times to shame the SR into printing the true about Cozza. They refused too. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Obviously, you don`t know what the heck is going on. BTW, the Spokane city council claims, along with the Mayor, they can restrict dumping and polluting the Spokane river.

• 

  liarsinnews on August 24 at 10:53 p.m.

  Spokane citizen: Why don`t you use your real name. You remind of a gutless wonder.

• 

  Spokane_Citizen on August 25 at 8:22 p.m.

  All you’ve done for the citizens of Spokane is waste their money by initiating frivolous lawsuits. Judge Cozza, a much respected jurist, rendered an entirely just decision.