Spokane River Makes Polluted-Waters List Add 25 More Waterways To Roster Of Lakes And Streams Flunking Standards

Water quality continues to deteriorate in 636 of Washington’s lakes, streams and estuaries, according to a state survey released this week.

The Spokane River and its main tributaries made the pollution roster. So did the Columbia, Yakima and lower Snake rivers.

There are 25 more polluted waterways in Washington than there were two years ago when the last Washington Department of Ecology survey was completed.

The increasing pollution is “simply unacceptable,” said Ecology Department Director Tom Fitzsimmons.

Much of it comes from hard-to-control “non-point” sources, including urban sprawl, timber harvesting and manure from dairy farms, and not from the “point source” discharge pipes of industrial polluters.

The 636 polluted bodies of water are among 1,099 known to be threatened that continue to flunk state and federal water quality standards and aren’t expected to improve within the next two years.

The polluted stretches of water make up only about 2 percent of all the waterways in the state, but even that is too much, Fitzsimmons said.

Of the threatened waters, 317 are listed for elevated water temperatures, usually occurring when loggers or developers have removed shade-providing trees.

Another 289 waterways fail to meet fecal coliform bacteria limits. They are polluted with sewage and animal waste, including wastes from failing septic systems and improperly managed dairy farms.

Excessive nutrients are the worst problem, the Ecology Department says. They cause algae and other plants to grow, depriving aquatic life of vital oxygen and eventually making lakes unsuitable for recreation.

The only county that doesn’t make the warning list is rural Grant County in Eastern Washington.

The Spokane River is listed several times for a variety of pollutants and other problems. It has unacceptably high levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in fish and overly warm temperatures that threaten aquatic life, the Ecology Department says.

It’s also contaminated with a variety of other pollutants, including phosphorus, chromium, arsenic, cadmium, mercury and zinc. Ecology says the metals in the river are from a century of mining activities in North Idaho.

Other pollution sources - including sewage treatment plants at Post Falls and Liberty Lake, and the Inland Empire Paper Company at Millwood - also remove oxygen from the river, said Dave Knight, Ecology watershed coordinator in Spokane.

“The Spokane River is the most complex and has the most pollutants” of the listed rivers in Eastern Washington, Knight said.

Other tainted waterways in Spokane County: Long Lake, PCBs in fish and fecal coliform bacteria; Little Spokane River, PCBs in fish, pH imbalance, high temperature and fecal coliform bacteria; and Hangman Creek, fecal coliform bacteria, pH, overly warm temperature.

Coliform bacteria comes from failing septic systems, range animals and wild animals living along streams, Knight said.

The state survey is a requirement of the federal Clean Water Act. It’s done every two years and is used to make water cleanup plans.

As part of that effort, a comprehensive study of pollution in the Spokane River is scheduled for 1999. Researchers will determine the river’s “total maximum daily load” - the pollution the river can hold and still meet water quality standards.

The study will start at the Idaho state line but will include sources of pollution in Idaho, Knight said.

“It’s easy to find point sources. The trickier part is finding the non-point sources,” he said.

The state House of Representatives, meanwhile, announced a hearing next week on the impact of federal water-quality standards on the state.

The Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act “include strict water quality standards which have the potential to hit Washingtonians very hard,” said Rep. Gary Chandler, R-Moses Lake.

Chandler heads the House Agriculture and Ecology Committee, which will take up the issue at 9 a.m. Monday in Olympia.

He said the panel also will consider whether the state should take the lead in developing standards for total maximum daily loads, one measure of water quality.

ON THE INTERNET Ecology’s extensive water quality report is available on the agency’s Internet home page. The address is http://www.wa.gov/ecology/wq/303d.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.