Spokane County’s 167 million dollar sewage treatment plant could become operational by early 2012. This assumes the Department of Ecology will issue a permit to discharge treated effluent into the Spokane River. The Spokesman Review reports.
12 years of study and numerous collaborative efforts has culminated in EPA approving Washington’s DO TMDL (also called a Water Quality Improvement Plan) for the Spokane River.
As many as thirty docks in an especially scenic and ecologically important stretch of the Spokane River are proposed as part of the Coyote Rock development. The City of Spokane Valley and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife are approving permits for these docks one at a time. Washington Department of Ecology has a different view. Siding with the Spokane Riverkeeper and Trout Unlimited, Ecology filed a petition contesting the exemption for failing “to contain appropriate conditions to address cumulative effects arising from the reasonably foreseeable construction of similar docks in the area.” The Center for Justice reports.
Ted Sturdevant, director of the Washington Department of Ecology, said Wednesday that he stands behind his agency’s ambitious plan to reduce phosphorus flowing in the Spokane River. The Spokesman Review reports.
The director of the Washington Department of Ecology (Ecology) has determined that the conditions in the Spokane River’s water quality improvement plan should be upheld. Ted Sturdevant’s decision follows a review of the plan by a dispute resolution panel that met April 5, 2010, to hear concerns raised by several stakeholders.