Sierra Club challenges Liberty Lake sewage plant proposal

The Sierra Club is concerned that a proposed $11 million sewer treatment plant in Liberty Lake could waste tax dollars and violate state laws.

During a meeting Tuesday at Liberty Lake City Hall, officials with the sewer district and the Department of Ecology tried to assure Sierra Club representatives that building the plant is an environmentally sound decision.

The district hoped to answer the Sierra Club’s questions and take a step toward obtaining a building permit, which has been on hold while the city gathers public input.

A point in question is whether the district’s 3-year-old environmental impact study, which was performed when the district initially planned to build the plant, is still adequate.

Because water-quality issues have changed substantially since then, some believe the district should do a new environmental study.

District officials and Ecology contend that the study is OK since the scope of the project hasn’t changed.

With a long-awaited study of Spokane River still only in draft form – and regulations for discharging into the river yet to be established – Sierra Club representatives questioned the wisdom of building a plant that won’t meet expected water-quality standards from day one.

“It really does a disservice to the public to build a plant where you’re going to have to add millions of dollars of technology to meet state laws,” said Rachael Paschal Osborn, an attorney who represents the Sierra Club.

Len Bramble, of the Department of Ecology, acknowledged that the plant wouldn’t initially meet future pollution standards or address specifics for land application if release into the river is prohibited.

However, he said, Ecology believes the new plant would reduce phosphorous to acceptable levels and lay the groundwork for phase two upgrades, which will further treat wastewater to address future standards. “Those considerations were taken heavily into account for us to arrive at approval for the facilities plan,” Bramble said.

The expansion project is split into two parts. Phase one would create a new plant, which engineers say would significantly improve the quality of effluent released into the river. Phase two would update the old million-gallon plant to address future standards for releasing treated water into the river. It also doubles the plant’s capacity to 2 million gallons a day.

Ecology has given its conditional approval of the first phase of the project, but it told the district that it can’t process any more than the 1 million gallons a day that it’s currently permitted to handle.

The Sierra Club questions why the district is moving forward when regulations governing pollutants in wastewater are still uncertain.

Osborn said another Sierra Club concern is ensuring that no significant changes of permitting and plant operation are allowed without full environmental-impact studies.

The district responded that if there are major changes to the facilities’ plan – if the district is given a permit to double its discharges to 2 million gallons a day or if it needs to discharge treated water onto land – there will be additional environmental studies and public input forums.

At the end of the meeting, sewer Commissioner Tom Agnew responded to the charge that the project may waste millions of ratepayer dollars by saying that project engineers assured board members that all of the major expenditures in phase one would be utilized in phase two.

Sierra Club representatives also received information, put together by project engineers, to address questions raised in a Sierra Club letter sent two weeks ago.

A permit – if authorized by the city – could take another month or longer.

During a phone interview after the meeting, Osborn said she still has concerns about the project and believes that by approving the district’s plan Ecology is violating the state Clean Water Act. “I don’t feel more at ease. The problem is they’re going to build a plant that doesn’t meet standards,” Osborn said. “We’ve been raising the same questions in a lot of different places and we’re not getting the answers we want.”