Closer to Perfect

After months of negotiation, Avista reaches settlement with Sierra Club and CELP on downtown waterfalls.

Spokane’s Avista Corporation and two environmental organizations have announced a settlement that will dramatically increase water flowing to the middle and northern portions of the Spokane falls during low water months. The settlement resolves the last issue in a protracted challenge that Sierra Club and the Center for Environmental Law & Policy (CELP) brought last July in conjunction with the utility’s re-licensing of its Spokane River dams.

According to a joint press release, the agreement requires Avista to maintain minimum flows of water over the Upper Falls’ north and middle channels in Riverfront Park. It also includes provisions for additional aesthetic spills for lower Spokane Falls below the Monroe Street Dam.

Once implemented, the conditions will include a minimum aesthetic spill at Upper Falls of 300 cubic feet per second (cfs) during daylight hours and 100cfs at night. The Monroe Street Dam would also maintain a minimum nighttime spill of 100 cfs. The conditions also ensure that the Upper Falls Powerhouse will operate with a minimum flow of 500 cfs. In addition, Avista, Sierra Club, CELP and Ecology will work together to explore restoration of the north river channel, in which cuts were made prior to Avista’s hydro development.

“We’re very pleased to have brought this issue to a resolution that will provide a more pleasing experience for park visitors while at the same time allowing Avista to continue generating renewable hydropower at Upper Falls,” said Speed Fitzhugh, Avista Spokane River license manager.

“Water will be restored to Spokane Falls twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and we are thrilled,” said Rachael Paschal Osborn, director of Sierra Club’s Spokane River Project and of the Center for Environmental Law & Policy. “These waterfalls are important from every vantage: cultural, historic, economic and aesthetic. Spokane just took one big step nearer to nature, nearer to perfect.”