Clean-water pledge asked of homeowners

Clean water advocates will be knocking on doors in Liberty Lake today encouraging residents to pledge doing their part to clean up the watershed.

The pledge is a community action project designed to get residents thinking about household items harmful to the watershed on which the community relies.

The volunteers are with the Liberty Lake Sewer and Water District’s Watershed Advisory Committee. Homeowners will be given a checklist of household items harmful to the watershed. The volunteers will be around again next Saturday.

If the pledge goes well, the state Department of Ecology will continue the drive downstream in Spokane Valley. It was DOE that pitched the idea to advisory committee members in Liberty Lake, in part because Liberty Lake residents are known for being environmentally conscientious and extremely community oriented.

Ideally, the pledge will result in a drop in what biologists call “zero point pollution,” that is pollution that doesn’t come from a recognized source, like a factory or a sewer plant discharge pipe. More than 45 percent of the pollution now draining into the Spokane Valley/Rathdrum Prairie aquifer comes from homes and businesses not regulated by the government.

There’s no penalty for not complying with the pledge, officials say. The purpose is to get people thinking about what’s being spread on their lawns or going down their drains.