Our View: Time is wasting

When a 20-year Spokane River cleanup plan was announced last March, the stakeholders involved in the collaboration – environmentalists, dischargers and government officials – celebrated with cake and congratulations.

Dozens of men and women had worked together for more than two years to figure out how to limit the amount of phosphorus in the river. Phosphorus devours the dissolved oxygen that keeps the river vital for fish and other life forms.

The Spokane River TMDL Collaboration was hailed as a nationwide model. Businesses and municipalities agreed to invest millions of dollars in state-of-the-art wastewater treatment. The cleanup plan also detailed how to go after non-point sources of pollution, such as septic tanks and agricultural runoff.

Tonight, the Washington Department of Ecology is scheduled to unveil its Spokane River cleanup plan. But controversy has replaced congratulations. Drea Traeumer, an Ecology Department scientist who helped write the plan, has quit in protest. She told Spokesman-Review reporter James Hagengruber: “I have never authored anything that’s not defensible. My recommendations on how to proceed defensibly were disregarded.”

A major sticking point is how much phosphorus Idaho is allowed to discharge. Those who oppose the plan say it’s way too much. Those in favor of the plan say that Idaho’s phosphorus is negligible, and even with Idaho’s pollution, there will be a 95 percent reduction in phosphorus in the river in the next decade.

Environmental groups will likely appeal the proposed plan to the federal government, which will likely delay the river’s cleanup several more years. What an unfortunate mess.

The 111-mile river is shared by more than 500,000 people. It’s both a rural and urban river. One of the legal uses of the river is still wastewater discharge. (Inland Empire Paper Co., owned by the same company that owns The Spokesman-Review, is one of those dischargers.) Spokane County’s proposed wastewater treatment plant, which will reduce septic tanks and help reduce phosphorus discharge, has been on hold since 2003 to allow the cleanup plan to be debated and drafted.

At tonight’s meeting, and during the 45 days allowed for public comment, citizens will have the opportunity to ask questions that cut through politics and polarization. Can the Spokane River be saved? Yes, but it will take continued compromise and collaboration.

Delays don’t clean up rivers. Action does. In March, stakeholders agreed upon a reasonable plan of action for the river. It needs to go forward as planned.