People love the Spokane River. They know it’s polluted, but they swim, fish and play along its banks anyway.

The Center for Justice in Spokane recently completed a survey measuring knowledge and attitudes about the Spokane River. The encouraging news: People use the river and want to help preserve it. The challenging news: They don’t know much about its heavy-metal deposits, or its toxic chemicals, such as PCBs and PBDEs.

“I have a 3-year-old son and I wouldn’t let him near the banks of the Spokane River,” said attorney Rick Eichstaedt, one of the center’s Spokane River experts.

The public has become fairly well-educated about phosphorus in the river that devours life-giving dissolved oxygen. Now, a collaborative group is taking on the next big challenge: Educating the public about the river’s toxic chemicals and heavy metals.

The Center for Justice recently published, with a Washington Department of Ecology grant, a public guide to the toxic chemicals and heavy metals in the Spokane River. It went to 13,000 people, including nearly 10,000 Spokane residents who live within walking distance of the river. The guide is available at the center’s Web site, too.

The guide, written in easy-to-understand language, explains that cancer-causing PCBs, once used in commercial and household products, were banned in 1979, but still are found in the river and its fish. PBDEs (better known as fire retardants) are not banned, but they show up where they don’t belong – in breast milk and in the river.

The guide offers ways to limit exposure. For instance, if your children play by or in the river, be sure to wash their hands, face, feet and toys before eating or leaving the beach.

Some sources of the river’s toxic chemicals and heavy metals reside in history, when mines, businesses and factories leached chemicals into the soil and the river. The toxic legacy remains.

“There is no smoking gun. No one industry is responsible,” explained river expert Andy Dunau. He will present an overview on the river’s heavy metals and toxic chemicals at a public workshop June 16.

River cleanup is a community challenge. No one yet knows all the sources of PBDE contamination, but one possible pathway to the river might be “wastewater from carpet cleaning, washing machines, and the dry cleaning of (items) that contain the fire retardants,” according to Eichstaedt.

As summer nears, be cautious when you play in or along the river. And take time to learn how to make the river safer and cleaner for future generations.