Batt Opposes Epa Involvement With Aquifer Governor’s Stance Disappoints Environmental Group In Moscow

Gov. Phil Batt has come out against an environmental group’s bid for federal protection for a drinking water aquifer in North Idaho and Eastern Washington.

Batt’s stance won praise from the Ephrata, Wash.-based Northwest Council of Governments and Associates, but it disappointed the Palouse-Clearwater Environmental Institute in Moscow.

“It’s unfortunate he has taken a political tack on this,” Tom Lamar, executive director for the institute, said Monday.

The institute asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency two years ago to designate the eastern Columbia plateau aquifer system as a sole source of drinking water for parts of Benewah, Latah and Nez Perce counties in Idaho and Adams, Douglas, Franklin, Grant, Lincoln, Spokane and Whitman counties in Washington.

The designation would give the EPA authority to review federally financed projects that could threaten ground-water quality. The Moscow group’s request has been placed on hold pending review by a scientific panel this summer.

In a letter to EPA Administrator Carol Browner, Batt said agricultural interests, farmers, businesses and some members of the Idaho and Washington congressional delegations are concerned about the designation process and the authority the EPA would assume.

“I share their concern about the potential of having another layer of federal and, in some cases, state environmental regulations added to the already burdensome load of government regulation,” he wrote in a letter dated April 25.

“The existing system of federal and state regulations provides ample opportunity for public oversight and proper management of drinking water sources.”

Batt said his staff and the state Division of Environmental Quality have concluded the designation proposal is not based on sound scientific information.

“Respected scientists from the University of Idaho and Washington Department of Ecology have given the EPA documentation and evidence demonstrating that the area is served by multiple, separate and distinct aquifers,” Batt said.

The Northwest Council of Governments and Associates released the governor’s letter.

“This is yet another independent evaluation that denounces the pseudo-science used by (the environmental institute) for the designation,” William Riley, the council’s executive director, said in a prepared statement. “We have said all along that (the institute’s) petition was based on inaccurate assumptions and untested theories about the ground water.”

But Lamar said the environmental institute hired scientists who based their work on scientific documents that have gone through peer review.

Three months ago, Republican U.S. Reps. Helen Chenoweth of Idaho and George Nethercutt of Washington asked President Clinton not to designate the eastern Columbia plateau as a sole-source aquifer.