(The Center Square) – Spokane County officials approved a ballot resolution Tuesday for the August election aimed at authorizing a West Plains Aquifer Protection Area with fees for local property owners.
State law allows local governments to authorize aquifer protection areas, or APAs, with voter approval and charge monthly fees that they can spend on construction and other water infrastructure projects.
The proposal coincides with a state-mandated PFAS cleanup around the Spokane International Airport, with open-ended costs for the city of Spokane, the county and SIA. Experts often refer to the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances as “forever chemicals” because they take hundreds of years to break down.
The Board of County Commissioners unanimously agreed to place the resolution on the August ballot.
“I like the title ‘aquifer protection.’ We need it, but the failure of aquifer protection in the past is not the fault of the residents; it’s the fault of the government,” John Hancock, president of the West Plains Water Coalition, testified on Tuesday. “I’d like to be able to support this, because it’s a good idea, but there hasn’t been enough discussion so that we all understand what we’re getting in [return] here.”
SIA first detected PFAS contamination in 2017, stemming from firefighting foams used by the nearby Fairchild Air Force Base since the 1970s. Residents have called on local officials to mitigate the crisis and provide clean water for years, as their water supply flows beneath, carrying cancerous chemicals.
If approved, the West Plains APA would cover unincorporated areas of the county and Airway Heights, Cheney and Medical Lake, which already agreed to participate. Agenda materials suggest that 18,600 parcels could be included, excluding Fairchild Air Force Base, even though it sits within the boundary.
The West Plains APA would levy the same fee rate as another APA covering Spokane Valley and nearby jurisdictions; however, that measure is intended to address contamination from swaths of septic tanks.
The monthly fee comes out to $1.25 per household unit drawing water from the aquifer and $1.25 per unit using septic systems. For properties paying both, the monthly fees would amount to $30 annually.
“I urge the commission to revise the proposal to ensure that existing West Plains residents are exempt from the APA fees,” Alexandra Biggs, a resident who lives in that area, testified. “Especially since they are impacted by PFAS contamination … people who are out there have already borne the burden.”
State law allows Spokane to spend the revenue on a comprehensive plan to protect the water supply, monitor water quality, enforce water protections, conduct public education and construct stormwater, sanitary sewer and drinking water projects and other facilities to remove pollutants from the aquifer.
“This will result in a very large bureaucracy with inspectors, regulators, etc,” Larry Wilcox, an impacted resident, testified. “It seems more like a reaction to very legitimate pollution concerns, yet something that city water and wastewater infrastructures could lead the way in conservation and innovation.”
The county estimates the proposed APA could generate $400,000 annually, with $150,000 dedicated to staff, $75,000 to water quality monitoring, and $15,000 to public education. The remaining money could be distributed to the cities or retained for regional construction projects as previously explained.
If approved, that revenue could assist the state-mandated cleanup effort, despite the Department of Ecology ruling that the city, county and SIA are ultimately liable for the nearby PFAS contamination.
The APA would essentially reduce the local governments’ burden at the expense of impacted residents.
The county has received about $7.5 million from the state to install filter systems, but completing the entire cleanup will take years. Local officials recently applied for another $23.6 million to help provide clean drinking water and assist the cleanup, as some families spend thousands of dollars on filters.
“Our family purchased a whole-house filtration and storage system, which supplies our garden and livestock, at a cost of about $15K with installation,” Crystal Bingham wrote in a comment to Ecology in March over the cleanup. “We should be reimbursed. ONLY reimbursement would make us whole.”
Last month, all three parties submitted a short-term action plan to provide clean drinking water to the West Plains as required by Ecology’s cleanup order. The plan included providing PFAS water pitchers to impacted residents, access to Spokane’s Garden Springs water fill station and private well sampling.
Ecology officials responded in a letter, arguing that requiring residents to drive to the fill station and haul their water home was too great a burden, and ordered Spokane to also deliver bottled drinking water.
“In the interest of providing relief to impacted residents as soon as possible, Ecology is accepting this Work Plan as meeting the bare minimum requirements,” according to an April 13 letter. “Acceptance, however, does not indicate Ecology’s full agreement or endorsement regarding the adequacy of [it].”
Hancock told The Center Square in an interview that bottled water delivery costs about $40 to $50 per household per month, which ultimately falls on taxpayers due to the Ecology order. He said about 900 families are affected by the PFAS contamination, and argued that the APA would do little to address it.
“There’s a specific line that says it’s exempt from the State Environmental Protection Act,” Hancock told The Center Square. “There’s no relationship between this ballot measure and actual protection.”
