SPOKANE — Five of the largest entities releasing wastewater into the Spokane River have submitted their plans to limit a cancer-causing chemical from spilling into the waterway.
Those plans all argue that a legal limit for polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, established by federal regulators would be too costly to meet in the coming years, potentially causing a need to dig more wells for fresh water in the Spokane aquifer or costing the city of Spokane’s utility customers an additional billion dollars to deal with millions of gallons of treated sewage. The state’s Department of Ecology now will evaluate those applications for what’s known as a variance from the pollution standards, even as it challenges a Trump administration that has signaled its intention to roll back those standards for all of Washington’s waterways.
For conservationists in Spokane concerned about healthy fish and safe recreation on the river, that work is a contradiction.
“It’s a very confusing situation, with the state saying it’s standing up for the tight water quality standard, while at the same time, creating kind of an off-ramp to ever actually meeting that,” said Jerry White Jr., Spokane’s Riverkeeper.