Epa Backs Away From Protecting Aquifer Indefinite Delay Of Sole Source Designation Follows Months Of Political Heat

After months of political heat, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency indefinitely delayed federal protection for a vast Eastern Washington aquifer.

It’s only the second time in the Northwest the EPA had the scientific proof to protect an aquifer, but decided not to act.

EPA backed away from the protection it proposed in 1994 for the Eastern Columbia Plateau aquifer system as the sole source of drinking water for 300,000 people in a 14,000-square-mile chunk of the Inland Northwest.

The aquifer system runs under a seven-county area in Adams, Douglas, Franklin, Grant, Lincoln, Whitman and parts of Spokane. It’s also in parts of four Idaho counties - Benewah, Kootenai, Latah and Nez Perce.

The EPA made its decision after a bitter internal debate on the politics of the issue, agency insiders say.

EPA got a barrage of criticism from powerful Eastern Washington interests, including potato processors, farm groups and rural elected officials.

State agencies and politicians, including Republicans Rep. George Nethercutt of Spokane and Rep. Doc Hastings of Pasco, also opposed the plan, saying it was heavy-handed and based on poor science.

The sole source aquifer program allows EPA to review federal projects to make sure they won’t pollute a protected aquifer.

In late October, EPA forged a compromise with state and local officials, said Chuck Clarke, the EPA’s regional administrator in Seattle.

The formal agreement creates one or more groundwater management areas in a region that stretches from the Spokane River southwest to the Columbia.

Directors of the state departments of Ecology, Agriculture and Health signed the agreement.

The proposal also has the backing of the Palouse Clearwater Environmental Institute, a Moscow, Idaho-based environmental group that petitioned EPA to protect the aquifer.

“Even though EPA clearly has the scientific basis for making the designation, EPA prefers programs that have a grass-roots impetus, and the strong backing of state agencies,” Clarke said in a prepared statement Tuesday.

One-fifth of the drinking water wells in the Columbia Basin in central Washington contain unsafe levels of nitrates, according to a 1995 federal study.

Clarke’s long-rumored decision wasn’t a surprise. According to EPA insiders, he made it for political reasons.

“On a technical basis, we still feel the area qualifies,” said Martha Sabol, an EPA senior scientist. She said she’s pleased the science supports the designation.

“But Chuck took other things into account: economics, politics, and what’s going on with other groundwater protection measures,” Sabol said.

William Riley, executive director of the Northwest Council of Governments and Associates in Ephrata, a major critic of the EPA proposal, could not be reached Tuesday for comment.

It’s still uncertain how much money will be spent on the groundwater cleanup effort.

“The state is going to provide some money for this, and we’ll be looking for more,” said the EPA’s Scott Downey.

By contrast to the furor over the Columbia Plateau aquifer, designation of the 350-square-mile Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer in the 1970s wasn’t controversial.

But the recent aquifer protection proposal got caught up in the growing anti-federal government movement. Its sheer size also was a factor.

The aquifer protection bid may have stalled, but the controversy pushed Washington state officials into the new groundwater management agreement, Downey said.

If it doesn’t work, the EPA may still move to grant the aquifer federal protection, he said.

“We haven’t denied the (Palouse-Clearwater) petition and we’re not saying we’re never going to designate,” Downey said.

Others have taken a long time.

Protection for the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer was proposed in September 1982, but opposition delayed the federal designation until 1991.

“That one took nine years,” Downey said.

, DataTimes