Spokane River issues call for collaboration

By now, everyone in the greater Spokane area knows that something is wrong with the Spokane River—that it’s somehow polluted or sick, that conflict exists around the causes and cures.

In truth, there are multiple reasons for the river’s illnesses and multiple possible fixes.

The river suffers from PCB (polychlorinated biphenyls) pollution from past industrial uses, metals pollution from past mining practices, and temperatures in some stretches that are too high for fish. But what has officials at every level of government particularly concerned is that oxygen levels in the water are too low for a healthy fish population.

When the river contains too much phosphorus or other “nutrient” pollution, algae and other water plants thrive. The pollution acts like fertilizer.

When the plants die off, the decomposition uses up the oxygen in the water. There’s too much nutrient pollution in the river and, therefore, not enough oxygen.

The pollution comes from a variety of sources: “point” sources, such as the end of an industrial or municipal pipe, and “non-point” sources, or polluted runoff from fields, lawns, streets and parking lots. The latter includes fertilizers and pesticides used on lawns and farms, and oils and car fluids that drip on pavement — all carried by storm water into the river.

The city of Spokane, Kaiser Aluminum in Trentwood, Inland Empire Paper and the cities of Liberty Lake, Post Falls and Coeur d’Alene all discharge wastewater that may contain phosphorus.

Because the river violates standards for nutrient pollution, a water-quality cleanup project, required by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, was launched to study the problem and limit these discharges.

By the end of this year, a draft cleanup plan should be available for public review. It will allocate the amount of phosphorus that each point source can safely discharge to bring the river into compliance with state standards.

But it’s more complicated than that. In some cases, the dischargers also add substantial amounts of water to the river, which is essential to keeping cool water flowing in the river, especially during summer months. So, looking only at phosphorus contributions from these sources doesn’t tell the whole story.

As another complication, Spokane County needs to build a new treatment plant for sewage from the city of Spokane Valley and other parts of the county to accommodate growth and development. By law, the Department of Ecology can’t allow a new discharge of pollutants to a river that is already violating state standards.

Ecology and the EPA have developed an innovative plan that we believe is workable, but it requires that all of the point sources work together to use newer methods of wastewater treatment and divvy up a limited amount of allowable discharge.

Initially, Spokane would need to give up about 10 million gallons of its 44-million-gallon capacity for the county’s new plant – but would get it back as the county’s treatment technology improves.

A new treatment facility serving people primarily east of downtown could be the impetus for the entire region to improve wastewater treatment and use innovative alternatives to discharging to the Spokane River.

The county needs a commitment from the city quickly because signed loan agreements are due this August if Ecology is to provide the money for the new county plant. Unless an agreement is reached, the loan will not go through, because it is illegal for us to finance a facility that will add pollution to a river that is already violating state standards.

There are no bad guys here. The city and county are trying to do the best for their citizens — to ensure they have the capacity to treat wastewater in a growing and thriving community.

But some time in the extremely near future, a bullet has to be bitten. The community cannot keep discharging wastewater to the Spokane River at the current rate using older technology — not if we want the river to be the scenic natural amenity that we’ve all come to love.

We have to move into a new era of dealing with wastewater with modern methods, making it cleaner than it is now, safely applying highly treated wastewater on land, or taking advantage of water-reuse technology.

We all have to give and take, including you and me. Citizens and farmers need to avoid inadvertently polluting the river from home or from the farm.

Many citizens are talking about forming a grass-roots organization to get more involved with Spokane River issues, to give the community at large a voice in what happens to the river.

The Department of Ecology encourages and applauds those efforts. It’s everyone’s river. It’s time for all of us to come together to forge solutions, even though the solutions may not always be comfortable or free.