In the early 1970s, park officials and neighborhood advocates rejoiced in the addition of a new public park where an outfall pipe from the Kaiser smelting plant met Deadman Creek. Fifty years later, environmental regulators and the former owners of the property are trying to stop that flow, based on new knowledge about the harm of asbestos and other chemicals. 

Under the plan, an Ecology Department contractor, Clean Harbors Inc., would collect stockpiles of the foam from fire departments and state agencies and ship it to an incineration facility in Aragonite, Utah, about 50 miles west of Salt Lake City.

OLYMPIA – A state rule for the minimum amount of water that must flow in the Spokane River was properly set, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

Latah Creek's pollution is due largely to agricultural runoff and soil erosion along its 60 miles stretching from west of Spokane down into north central Idaho. The Washington Ecology Department has issued a new round of funding intending to incentivize farmers to adopt methods that don't churn up the soil and stabilize creek beds.

The Cannabis Science Task Force is charged with recommending science-based analytical methods, method validation protocols, performance criteria, proficiency testing, and homogenization procedures for testing cannabis and cannabis products.

A state agency didn’t have the legal authority to order Washington utilities and oil refineries to come up with ways to reduce the pollution their products eventually emit when used by other people.

Better cars and cleaner gas have reduced the need for the state vehicle emissions tests.

The Pend Oreille County commissioners voted unanimously Monday to shoot down the proposed comprehensive plan amendment, which would redesignate some 65% of land in the county from “public land” to “rural land,” opening the door to industrial development.

State regulators hope to publish in the spring their proposed rules governing discharge of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, into the Spokane River. Businesses and governments say the limit imposed by the federal government, currently under review, is too stringent to be met with current technology, while conservation groups worry a new, less strict temporary standard won’t protect the health of the community.

Water users in the Little Spokane River Basin may have to curb their consumption if water levels dip much lower, the state Department of Ecology has warned. The agency said Monday it had sent letters to 172 junior water rights holders in the parched watershed, warning it may have to impose water-use restrictions this summer.

Spokane River advocates say they got a major win in court Wednesday, assuaging some worries about summer flows dipping below adequate levels for recreational and business uses.

The Department of Energy has withdrawn its application for a state permit for the next phase of a pilot project it says could treat some of Hanford’s radioactive waste sooner and at less cost to taxpayers.

The public has until June 11 to submit comments on a cleanup plan for the oil-contaminated site known as the Black Tank Property in Spokane’s Hillyard neighborhood.

It’s not even summer, but it’ll soon smell like it: for the first time this year, Eastern Washington is forecast to be plagued with wildfire smoke.

The notice comes a month after the agency said it posted in error a request for comments on a change to allowable limits for polychlorinated biphenyls, a known carcinogen that conservationists worry will build up to unhealthy levels in fish.

A groundwater plume stretching from the smelter shuttered in 2000 on Hawthorne Road would be pumped to the surface and treated near the new northside Costco under a plan proposed by the Washington Ecology Department and a public trust tasked with cleaning decades of contamination.