Maybe in 2030
February 5th, 2008
The Inlander
Kevin Taylor
Jay Manning, who runs the state Department of Ecology, wanted to hear what was on people’s minds when it came to cleaning up the Spokane River.
So he invited a group to meet with him Jan. 21 at Ecology’s local headquarters on North Monroe — people involved with water quality from the top of the river, Idaho cities with sewage treatment plants, and the Spokane Tribe, which has stringent water quality standards.
People weren’t shy.
The industries and local governments that discharge treated wastewater into the river pitched Manning two bold proposals: one, that polluters should have up to 20 years to meet federal clean water standards instead of the current 10; and two, that the cleanup target for the amount of phosphorus in the river should be eased because it’s too strict.
“What we suggested, on behalf of the stakeholders, is there needs to be flexibility in the regulations,” says Doug Krapas, environmental manager of Inland Empire Paper.
Current state law provides a 10-year compliance schedule to meet the cleanup target of 8 parts per billion of phosphorus, with up to an additional 10 years in separate 5-year variances.
Wastewater dischargers instead propose 20 years. With the variances added on top, the new schedule could allow 30 years, or a generation, to comply.
Manning is willing to consider the first pitch, he says. Already, language for a potential bill in the Legislature is being kicked around, says Colleen Kerr, legislative director for Sen. Lisa Brown (D-Spokane).
But, “I strongly discourage” the second request to ease up on the cleanup target, Manning says. This process is known as a use attainability analysis (UAA) and can be granted (though Manning says none have) at the end of a cleanup effort if, despite everything, pollution still exceeds Clean Water Act standards.
“It strikes me that for us to do our job, for us to have any credible expectation for a UAA to be granted, we need to go out and do the work. We need to make the investment. And they are going to be expensive,” Manning says.
“I see Jay Manning trying to somehow accommodate dischargers who are in a tough situation, trying to give them some certainty,” says Mike Peterson, executive director of the Lands Council, who was at the meeting. “I am willing to always look at these kinds of things. But we certainly want to have a hard look at it.”
Both of these pitches have been made before in the tangled, presently stalled, lurch towards a cleanup plan for the Spokane River.
After the first cleanup plan, known as a TMDL (for total maximum daily load), was released by Ecology in 2004, dischargers threatened to sue if they didn’t get a waiver via the UAA. The saber rattling led to a two-year collaboration (to which environmental groups were not given full seating at the table) and resulted in a 20-year compliance schedule that was later found to be illegal.
Rich Eichstaedt, an attorney who represents the Sierra Club, contends the new extended schedule is just like the old extended schedule and wonders if anyone will be fooled again.
“We think this could be a big legal bucket of worms to try and extend a compliance schedule statewide by 10 years,” Eichstaedt says. “It’s questionable whether an extension to 20 years is legal. There has been litigation in California and, currently, in Oregon.”
Eichstaedt says he has written up his analysis in a letter sent to Manning and Brown. (See attachment at end of story). He has previously decried Ecology as having a customer-service attitude toward polluters instead of treating the river as its customer.
Is Manning’s willingness to explore an extension of the compliance schedule catering to polluters?
“I would not describe it that way,” Manning says. “I’d describe it as an attempt to meet what I consider to be a reasonable concern that 10 years may not be enough time to get there. I am willing to give people more time if they are not sitting around on their hands.”
But Inland Empire Paper and other dischargers feel pretty angsty that nobody knows what will happen to them if the pollution standard (8 parts per billion) can’t be met.
“We know with technology we can get to 50 parts per billion, but our permit would be for 8,” says Inland Empire Paper’s Krapas. The Cowles-owned paper mill has already spent heavily on research and pilot programs and has installed a cutting-edge tertiary treatment machine within the historic 1911-built brick factory in Millwood.
Regulators from two states plus the federal EPA have a hand in the Spokane River cleanup, as do wastewater treatment plant operators for seven cities (and Spokane County), a hydropower dam operator (Avista) and two Indian tribes.
“I don’t think it will be unusual at all that the work of getting people into a room and into agreement … is going to take awhile. And I don’t think it will be unusual if it takes longer than 10 years,” to reach compliance, Manning says.
“We are nervous about a 20-year compliance schedule which would have to be legislated,” says Peterson of the Lands Council. “It would have to set a precedent. To me, there would have to be some pretty solid commitment and check offs during the first 10 years to make sure people aren’t waiting to get a variance at the end of 10 years.”
Kerr, from Sen. Brown’s staff, says that right now there is no legislation.
“There’s no bill, but there is a conversation happening, and Ecology is participating and working with stakeholders,” she says. “It’s a pretty complicated conversation.”
It could be a long shot that such a complicated bill will make it through the Legislature this session, both Kerr and Manning say.
But Eichstaedt recalls an incident from last year when Spokesman-Review publisher Stacey Cowles made a Sunday morning cell phone call to one of Gregoire’s top policy directors to discuss many of the same issues that are in play now.
“These guys have access,” Eichstaedt says.