County Extending Sewer Line Plans To Reduce Number Of Homes On Septic Tanks Right On Schedule

Where does it all go when you flush?

For more and more Spokane County residents, it goes into a pipe, not into the ground.

Eighteen years and $130 million after it was dragged into the sewer business, the county has 18,000 customers on the North Side and in the Valley. Under an accelerated construction plan started in 1997, the number should grow to about 19,000 this year and 24,000 by 2004.

Each time an existing house or business is connected to the public sewer, a septic tank is eliminated. Scientists say those home septic systems pose a threat to Spokane’s underground water source, particularly when they malfunction.

“By the time we get through the next six years, we will have reduced the 15-year plan to 14 years,” said sewer planner Kevin Cooke. “At the rate we were going, it could have been a 25-year plan, or more.”

Limited capacity at the regional sewage treatment plant could slow construction and will require expensive solutions. But past opposition to sewers has largely faded and funding for neighborhood sewer projects should remain steady for at least the next 18 years.

For the first time, a homeowner can call the county Utilities Department, ask when sewers will be constructed in his or her neighborhood and get an answer - even if it is an estimate that could be off by a year or two.

The work wasn’t always that predictable.

The county’s sewer project dates back to 1981, when commissioners reluctantly announced a $50 million sewer project that would be completed in 10 years.

That step came only after the state Board of Health threatened a building moratorium if the county didn’t take steps to protect its underground water supply.

Hydrologists had warned for years that pockets of the Spokane Aquifer were being tainted by septic tanks.

The first pipes weren’t laid until 1985 and opposition was stiff. To help quell the protests, the county heavily subsidized sewer construction, charging homeowners a hook-up fee of $2,000 for work that cost about $6,500. Meanwhile, much of the county’s money went toward building pump stations and main sewer lines needed before any houses could be connected to the system.

Neighborhoods whose septic tanks posed the greatest threat to drinking water weren’t necessarily the first to get sewers. Instead, the schedule was based on the order in which neighbors submitted petitions asking for sewers.

Meanwhile, developers built houses with septic tanks nearly as fast as the county built sewers.

In 1981, county engineers had estimated there were 30,000 septic tanks over the aquifer. By 1993, about 8,500 septic tanks had been eliminated and engineers estimated more than 25,000 septic tanks remained. Unless something changed, it would take 50 to 100 years to complete the project, they said.

Alarmed at the slow progress, the state Board of Health in 1996 ordered the county to draw up a new, more realistic plan.

Commissioners authorized several changes in the way sewer work was funded and prioritized.

Under the new plan, neighborhoods that posed the biggest environmental threat get sewers first.

The plan calls for a steady increase in the sewer hook-up fee, which is $4,420 this year. That, combined with a state promise to provide $3.75 million a year for 20 years, allowed the county to greatly speed sewer construction.

“We’re starting to see a real cut in the number of septic tanks in our priority area,” said Cooke. “We’re getting rid of (old septic tanks) much faster than new ones are being added.”

That priority sewer area is much smaller than the overly ambitious boundaries commissioners adopted in 1981 and then expanded at developers’ request. The area, which designates where sewers will be built in 20 years, covers the most populated areas of the Valley and suburban north Spokane.

Despite Cooke’s optimism, progress could be slowed by problems at the regional treatment plant, the destination of all Spokane city and county sewer pipes. The county expects to max out its share of the plant’s capacity by 2007.

A $70 million expansion could delay the day when the county has to start sending sewage elsewhere. But that’s only if city officials who run the plant agree to sell some of the new capacity, as county officials have always assumed they would.

At a joint city-county meeting in March, city engineers said the city will need any new capacity at the plant to serve its own residents. County Commissioner Kate McCaslin responded angrily, accusing the city of attempting to use sewerage capacity to control growth outside city limits.

While city and county officials hope to resolve the conflict, the county says it has no choice but to start planning a plant of its own. Utilities Director Bruce Rawls recently told commissioners there’s no time to waste, since the process will probably take 10 years.

Among the issues that must be settled before the county builds:

Should there be one large treatment plant or several small ones?

Where should the plant or plants be located?

How would the county pay for a plant that could easily top $100 million?

The state and federal governments covered nearly the entire cost when the regional treatment plant was upgraded. Such help now is rare, so the money would have to be raised locally.

Should future plants discharge treated water into the Spokane River or onto land?

Coeur d’Alene, Hayden, Rathdrum and Post Falls are among the Idaho communities that discharge treated water into the river. In Washington, Kaiser Aluminum and the Liberty Lake community have treatment plants on the river, in addition to the plant that serves the city and county.

Most of those communities will need to increase the size of their treatment plants in the not-too-distant future. In the case of Liberty Lake, that upgrade may come as soon as 2005, said sewer district Manager Lee Mellish.

The combined impact of all those expansions means environmental regulations for treatment plants along the river are likely to grow ever more restrictive, said Ken Merrill of the state Department of Ecology.

“The more wastewater you want to put in the river, the cleaner it has to be” to prevent algae blooms and other problems, he said.

Across the country, many communities are turning to ground disposal and using the treated water to irrigate golf courses, crops, woodlots or parks, Merrill said.