Reducing phosphorus in the Spokane River
Spokane Regional Solid Waste System
Summer 2008 Newsletter
Spokane will lead the state this summer, banning high-phosphorus dishwasher detergents to improve water quality, particularly in the Spokane River and Lake Spokane.
As of July 1, 2008, it is illegal to sell residential dishwasher detergent containing 0.5% or more phosphors by weight in Spokane County. The rest of the state will follow, with the same standard applied in July 2010.
“We’re taking a significant step as a community to protect the Spokane River, which is an asset we all enjoy,” said Spokane Mayor Mary Verner.
A couple of years ago, local government, some businesses, and other partners from Spokane lobbied the state legislature to consider this action to help solve problems caused by too much phosphorus in the Spokane River and subsequently, downstream in Lake Spokane.
When a body of water contains too much phosphorus, algae and other water plants thrive. The phosphorus is essentially a plant nutrient, or fertilizer, for these plants, Later, the plants die, and their decomposition uses up oxygen in the water, robbing fish of the oxygen they need to live. Around the state of Washington, some 260 bodies of water have problems because of too much phosphorus.
Some experts estimate that phosphorus from dishwasher detergents amounts to between 10 to 12% of the phosphorus that enters municipal wastewater treatment plants. The ban on these high-phosphorus detergents is just one way that local government and industry are working to reduce phosphorus in our lakes and rivers.
The City of Spokane is spending millions of dollars to improve technology that will reduce the amount of phosphorus being discharged into the Spokane River. The City has also launched projects to irrigate portions of our golf courses with treated wastewater, reducing discharges to the river.
A list of dishwasher detergents that meet the new guidelines has bee gathered by the Washington Department of Ecology and is available online at www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wq/nonpoint/phosphours/PAlternatives.html. Many liquid dishwasher detergents come in plastic bottles Check the code on the bottom of the bottle – most are colored Code 2 plastic and can be recycled at System recycling centers.