Letter to the Editor: Water issues need backing of candidates

I read with interest your article on water diversion to Crab Creek proposed in 1931, and felt the need to offer a correction and expansion on the Big Bend Water Resource group’s efforts.

The plan to reuse polished water from Spokane’s waste treatment did not die because Lake Creek filled up (and dried out again.) It died because, in my opinion, the City of Spokane had no interest in the project. The City of Spokane has no interest in the project because the Department of Ecology permits them to release their waste water into the Spokane River. The Department of Ecology will continue to permit (revenue source) the City of Spokane until they decide (or are somehow forced) to do otherwise. Until then, it is less expensive to dump treated waste in the river. Spokane, back then, did not have a 20 year plan (engineer hired for a career) to do anything but dump into the river.

Reusing Spokane’s waste water was not the only idea BBWR pursued, obtaining water from the Columbia River was going to be opposed by everyone at that time, from the Colville Tribe in Colville to the Northwest Power Planning Council in Portland. So reusing waste water seemed like the best bet at the time. Jerry Schafer and others from the BBWR group presented the waste water reuse idea to a group of sports enthusiasts in Spokane one evening. The reuse of waste water is really a win-win-win concept. Jerry did all the talking, and after an excellent presentation received a standing ovation. I know, it’s unbelievable, but it’s a true story.

Even though there was liquor served at the sports enthusiasts meeting, we were encouraged by their positive response, and there was a good local response, too, with some reservation about the possibility of toilet paper floating down Pacific Lake. But we were confident that the best science at the time would solve that issue. From there we went to the City of Spokane, where the door slammed so fast in our face my nose still hurts all these years later.

Big Bend Water Resources was a group of “interested individuals.” Through the Lincoln County Soil Conservation District (a governmental agency), we applied for a grant from the Centennial Clean Water Fund for a feasibility study. Centennial Clean Water Fund is a rather large amount of tax money administered by the DOE for water issues, of which 50% was reserved each year for cleaning up Puget Sound. See DOE’s home web page, cleaning up Puget Sound is still the #1 focus after millions of state dollars and decades of time. I’m not saying that cleaning up Puget Sound is not a worthy goal, but I would say that we should spread the wealth a little. For a fraction of the amount of money that’s gone through the Centennial Clean Water Fund, this project could have been concluded years ago, and paying dividends.

When we applied for the grant, in just days we had written support from virtually all the local politicians and many communities and groups wrote support letters as well. But of course the grand was not funded. We were missing some of the “biggies,” the City of Spokane for one, and major politicians.

Bill Graedel picked up the ball as County commissioner, and did the best he could to move the project along, including getting the current effort going to pump water from Lake Roosevelt. But here we are today, lakes still dry, water table going down, still romancing the idea of filling up Lake Creek. I am hopeful the current effort is successful. But just in case it fails, I would suggest as a back up plan that “we” start to find, sponsor and support local candidates for political offices, local, state and federal, that have this project in mind and will work to see it finished (earmark.) Individuals have very little chance against the bureaucracy.

Norman Ott

Odessa