Congress Funds Water Quality Improvements

Thu., July 13, 2000

The Tri-State Water Quality Council has received $60,000 from Congress to improve water quality in the Clark Fork and Pend Oreille watershed.

The funding will come through the federal Environmental Protection Agency and was made possible by the support of Montana Sens. Max Baucus and Conrad Burns, according to Ruth Watkins, executive director of the Tri-State Water Quality Council.

A 1987 amendment to the Clean Water Act directed the EPA to conduct a study of the watershed to identify sources of pollution. From those results, the EPA developed a watershed management plan for the Clark Fork River, Lake Pend Oreille and the Pend Oreille River.

The council was created to implement that plan in western Montana, Idaho and northeast Washington. One of the council’s biggest accomplishments to date was securing an agreement among waste-water dischargers to spend $60 million to reduce nutrient pollution.

The council is working on an agreement between Montana and Idaho to significantly reduce nutrients in Lake Pend Oreille.

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Congress Funds Water Quality Improvements

Jesse Tinsley

Jim Meehan

Molly Quinn

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