Nearly a decade after Spokane Airport found forever chemicals in its groundwater, the state is requiring the city of Spokane and Spokane County to get affected well owners safe water.
Six hopefuls for Spokane and Spokane Valley city councils said the region should respond to global warming, but some worried budget shortfalls may hamper those efforts.
A new task force is providing the first official county response to the ‘forever chemicals’ crisis on the West Plains. Its leaders are considering declaring an emergency that would mobilize response funds.
The two governments jointly own Spokane International Airport, which discovered the chemicals six years before disclosing to the public. The decision could direct funding from the city and county for cleanup.
Spokane County sends much of its organic waste to a facility in Fishtrap, but it can’t process everything, and it can be hard to tell what’s admissible. We’re breaking it down for you.
The body would represent the first time the county has paid formal attention to the PFAS contamination crisis between Airway Heights and Spokane since the chemicals were found in West Plains groundwater more than 7 years ago.
County Commissioner French said the county had hired an attorney to “draft agreements” to pipe water to residents with forever chemical contamination. Prosecutor Haskell told Commissioner Chris Jordan the county was planning no agreements.
Washington’s current cap-and-trade program isn’t perfect, but if Initiative 2117 passes, not only would the current program die, the state would be prohibited from trying anything similar in the future.
Voters will decide in November whether Washington governments will be able to move away from fossil gas, a potent contributor to climate change, when they vote on Initiative 2066.
Officials have raised questions about the origins of ‘forever chemicals’ on the grounds of Spokane International Airport. An investigation released last week said the contamination probably resulted from SIA firefighting training.
